[-1-] The following year Caesar wished to court the favor of the entire multitude, that he might make them his own to an even greater degree. But since he was anxious to seem to be advancing also the interests of the leading classes, so as to avoid getting into enmity with them, he often told them that he would propose no measure which would not advantage them also. Now there was a certain proposition about the land which he was for assigning to the whole populace, that he had framed in such a way as to incur no little censure for it. However, he pretended he would not introduce this measure, either, unless it should be according to their wishes. So far as the law went, indeed, no one could find fault with him. The mass of the citizens, which was unwieldly (a feature which more than any other accounted for their tendency to riot), was thus turning in the direction of work and agriculture; and most of the desolated sections of Italy were being colonized afresh, so that not only those who had been worn out in the campaigns, but also all of the rest should have subsistence a plenty, and that without any individual expense on the part of the city or any assessment of the chief men; rather it included the conferring of both rank and office upon many. He wanted to distribute all the public land except Campania--this he advised their keeping distinct as a public possession, because of its excellence--and the rest he urged them to buy not from any one who was unwilling to sell nor again for so large a price as the settlers might wish, but first from people who were willing to dispose of their holdings and second for as large a price as it had been valued at in the tax-lists. They had a great deal of surplus money, he asserted, as a result of the booty which Pompey had captured, as well as from the new[29] tributes and taxes just established, and they ought, inasmuch as it had been provided by the dangers that citizens had incurred, to expend it upon those very persons. Furthermore he was for constituting the land commissioners not a small body, to seem like an oligarchy, nor composed of men who were laboring under any legal indictment,[30] lest somebody might be displeased, but twenty to begin with, so that many might share the honor, and next those who were most suitable, except himself. This point he quite insisted should be settled in advance, that it might not be thought that he was making a motion on his own account. He himself was satisfied with the conception and proposal of the matter; at least he said so, but clearly he was doing a favor to Pompey and Crassus and the rest.