[Sidenote: B.C. 45-44.]
Law reforms went on. Caesar appointed a commission to examine the huge
mass of precedents, reduce them to principles, and form a Digest. He
called in Marcus Varro's help to form libraries in the great towns. He
encouraged physicians and men of science to settle in Rome, by offering
them the freedom of the city. To maintain the free population of Italy, he
required the planters and farmers to employ a fixed proportion of free
laborers on their estates. He put an end to the pleasant tours of senators
at the expense of the provinces; their proper place was Italy, and he
allowed them to go abroad only when they were in office or in the service
of the governors. He formed large engineering plans, a plan to drain the
Pontine marches and the Fucine lake, a plan to form a new channel for the
Tiber, another to improve the roads, another to cut the Isthmus of
Corinth. These were his employments during the few months of life which
were left to him after the close of the war. His health was growing
visibly weaker, but his superhuman energy remained unimpaired. He was even
meditating and was making preparation for a last campaign. The authority
of Rome on the eastern frontier had not recovered from the effects of the
destruction of the army of Crassus. The Parthians were insolent and
aggressive.
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