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42After this he became censor with Agrippa as his colleague, and in addition to other reforms which he instituted, he purged the senate. For as a result of the civil wars a large number of knights and even of foot-soldiers were in the senate without justification in merit, so that the membership of that body had been swollen to a thousand. 2Now though it was his wish to remove these men, he did not erase any of their names himself, but urged them rather, on the strength of their own knowledge of their families and their lives, to become their own judges; he thus first persuaded some fifty of them to withdraw from the senate voluntarily, and then compelled one hundred and forty others to imitate their example. 3He disfranchised none of them, but posted the names of the second group only; for he spared the members of the first group the reproach of the publication of their names, because they had not delayed but had straightway obeyed him. So all these men returned to private life of their own free will, so far as appearances were concerned; but Quintus Statilius was deposed, decidedly against his will, from the tribuneship, to which he had been appointed. 4And Caesar caused some other men to become senators, and he enrolled among the ex-consuls two men of the senatorial class, a certain Gaius Cluvius and Gaius Furnius, because, after they had already been elected consuls, they had been unable to serve, since others had occupied their offices first. 5And at the same time he increased the number of patrician families, ostensibly with the senate’s permission, inasmuch as the greater part of the patricians had perished (indeed no class is so wasted in our civil wars as the nobility), and because the patricians are always regarded as indispensable for the perpetuation of our traditional institutions. 6In addition to these measures he forbade all members of the senate to go outside of Italy, unless he himself should command or permit them to do so. This restriction is still observed down to the present day; for no senator is allowed to leave the country for the purpose of visiting any place except Sicily and Gallia Narbonensis. 7But in the case of these regions, since they are close at hand and the inhabitants are unarmed and peaceful, those who have any possessions there are conceded the right to repair to them as often as they like without asking permission. 8And since he saw that many of the senators and others who had been partisans of Antony were still inclined to be suspicious of him, and was fearful lest they might set a revolution on foot, he announced that all the letters that had been found in Antony’s strong boxes had been burned. And it is quite true that he had destroyed some of them, but he was very careful to keep the larger part, and afterwards he did not scruple to make use of them, either.
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