His person was declared sacred; and, in
short, upon him alone were devolved for life all the great
dignities of the state. 16. It must be owned, that so much power could
never have been entrusted to better keeping. He immediately began his
empire by repressing vice and encouraging virtue. He committed the
power of judicature to the senators and knights alone; and by many
sumptuary laws restrained the scandalous luxuries of the rich. He
proposed rewards to all such as had many children, and took the most
prudent method of re-peopling the city, which had been exhausted in
the late commotions.
17. Having thus restored prosperity once more to Rome, he again found
himself under a necessity of going into Spain to oppose an army which
had been raised there under the two sons of Pompey, and Labie'nus his
former general. 18. He proceeded in this expedition with his usual
celerity, and arrived in Spain before the enemy thought him yet
departed from Rome. Cne'ius Pompey, and Sextus, Pompey's sons,
profiting by their unhappy father's example, resolved, as much as
possible, to protract the war; so that the first operations of the two
armies were spent in sieges and fruitless attempts to surprise each
other.
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