They had dreamt that the
Constitution was a living force which would revive of itself as soon as
its enemy was gone. They did not know that it was dead already, and that
they had themselves destroyed it. The Constitution was but an agreement by
which the Roman people had consented to abide for their common good. It
had ceased to be for the common good. The experience of fifty miserable
years had proved that it meant the supremacy of the rich, maintained by
the bought votes of demoralized electors. The soil of Italy, the industry
and happiness of tens of millions of mankind, from the Rhine to the
Euphrates, had been the spoil of five hundred families and their relatives
and dependents, of men whose occupation was luxury, and whose appetites
were for monstrous pleasures. The self-respect of reasonable men could no
longer tolerate such a rule in Italy or out of it. In killing Caesar the
optimates had been as foolish as they were treacherous; for Caesar's
efforts had been to reform the Constitution, not to abolish it. The civil
war had risen from their dread of his second consulship, which they had
feared would make an end of their corruptions; and that the Constitution
should be purged of the poison in its veins was the sole condition on
which its continuance was possible. The obstinacy, the ferocity, the
treachery of the aristocracy had compelled Caesar to crush them; and the
more desperate their struggles the more absolute the necessity became.
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