To understand the world in which Cæsar lived it is necessary first to review the growth of the Roman Empire. Four hundred years before the beginning of the Christian era Rome was a small city, an independent state, it is true, but in possession of a territory no larger than an American county. In a succession of wars lasting through a century and a third (400-264 B. C.), she gained control of the whole peninsula of Italy. In another century (264-167 B. C.), through a new series of wars, she built up an empire that nearly surrounded the Mediterranean Sea. This rapid expansion of power is one of the most notable events in the world’s history. In the present number of The Mentor, however, we are less concerned with the process of conquest than with its result. When Rome subdued a foreign state, she exercised her right of war in depriving it of a great part of its wealth, including money, land, and art treasures, not only paintings and marbles, but works of great intrinsic value in bronze, silver, and gold. These confiscations and the subsequent taxes levied by the imperial government, together with the illegal exactions of officials, tended to impoverish the world for the enrichment of Rome and of the few citizens who monopolized the offices. The conquest differentiated the freemen of the empire into three distinct classes: the few wealthy Romans, who governed the world, the masses of Roman citizens who, though in possession of the right to vote had gained no advantage by the conquest, and the subjects, barred from all share in the imperial government and greatly oppressed by its officials. [Illustration: JULIUS CÆSAR In the Capitoline Museum, Rome] Rome became a great city with a population of about a million, who had gathered from all parts of the empire. Some had come as slaves, others to seek their fortunes, while others had been driven from the surrounding districts by the pinch of poverty. As freemen could find little work in the city, there grew up a great mob of idlers, who lived in large part on food doled out to them by the state as the price of their votes. The ruling class was represented by the Senate, which was the chief governing body. Generally the senators were the most cultured and intelligent people at Rome; but they had all the faults of a narrow plutocracy; through long enjoyment of wealth and power the class was thoroughly corrupted and enfeebled. Hence the Senate proved incapable of governing and protecting the empire and even of preventing the frequent outbreaks of anarchy in the capital. [Illustration: TEMPLE OF JUPITER--CAPITOLINE As it appeared in the time of Cæsar] _Early Life of Cæsar_