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2Now Caesar allowed it to be understood that he was spending his private means upon these festivals, and when money was needed for the public treasury, he borrowed some and supplied the want; and for the management of the funds he ordered two annual magistrates to be chosen from among the ex-praetors. 2To the populace he distributed a quadruple allowance of grain and to some of the senators he made presents of money. For so many of them had become impoverished that none was willing to hold even the office of aedile because of the magnitude of the expenditures involved; indeed, the functions which belonged to that office, and particularly the judicial functions, were assigned to the praetors, as had been the custom, the more important to the praetor urbanus and the rest to the praetor peregrinus. 3In addition to all this, Caesar himself appointed the praetor urbanus, as, indeed, he often did subsequently. He cancelled all obligations which had been given to the public treasury previous to the battle of Actium, except those secured by buildings, and he burned the old notes of those who were indebted to the state. 4As for religious matters, he did not allow the Egyptian rites to be celebrated inside the pomerium, but made provision for the temples; those which had been built by private individuals he ordered their sons and descendants, if any survived, to repair, and the rest he restored himself. 5He did not, however, appropriate to himself the credit for their erection, but allowed it to go as before to the original builders. And inasmuch as he had put into effect very many illegal and unjust regulations during the factional strife and the wars, especially in the period of his joint rule with Antony and Lepidus, he abolished them all by a single decree, setting the end of his sixth consulship as the time for their expiration. 6When, now, he obtained approbation and praise for this act, he desired to exhibit another instance of magnanimity, that by such a policy he might be honoured all the more and might have his sovereignty voluntarily confirmed by the people, so as to avoid the appearance of having forced them against their will. 7Therefore, having first primed his most intimate friends among the senators, he entered the senate in his seventh consulship and read the following address:
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