As a
fitting close to the war he proclaimed an amnesty to all who had borne
arms against him. The past was to be forgotten, and all his efforts were
directed to the regeneration of Roman society. Cicero paints the habits of
fashionable life in colors which were possibly exaggerated; but enough
remains of authentic fact to justify the general truth of the picture.
Women had forgotten their honor, children their respect for parents.
Husbands had murdered wives, and wives husbands. Parricide and incest
formed common incidents of domestic Italian history; and, as justice had
been ordered in the last years of the Republic, the most abandoned villain
who came into court with a handful of gold was assured of impunity. Rich
men, says Suetonius, were never deterred from crime by a fear of
forfeiting their estates; they had but to leave Italy, and their property
was secured to them. It was held an extraordinary step toward improvement
when Caesar abolished the monstrous privilege, and ordered that parricides
should not only be exiled, but should forfeit everything that belonged to
them, and that minor felons should forfeit half their estates.
Cicero had prophesied so positively that Caesar would throw off the mask
of clemency when the need for it was gone, that he was disappointed to
find him persevere in the same gentleness, and was impatient for revenge
to begin.
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