Cicero had earned the gratitude of Rome by preserving it from its threatened destruction at the hands of Catiline; but the rest of his record as consul was not of a very creditable character. Throughout his year of office Cicero was the consistent champion of the senatorial party, and the opponent of all measures to improve the economic conditions of the people. In particular, Cicero is to be censured for his opposition to the agrarian law proposed at this time. Cicero was also largely responsible for the defeat of a bill to restore the right of citizenship to the children of the men who had been proscribed by Sulla. CHAPTER XI JULIUS CÆSAR It now remains to relate the life history of the man by whom the republican form of government at Rome was fated to be finally overthrown. That the existence of this Roman republic was doomed, that democratic or oligarchical government must give way either to anarchy or despotism, had been certain ever since the refusal of the Roman citizens to support the attempted reforms of the Gracchi. There is no greater obstacle to the complete success of popular government than the almost inexplicable tendency of the majority of men to crucify the true reformer and conscientious lover of humanity as a disturber of, and a menace to, society, and to heap honors upon the head of the selfish, unprincipled, egotistical, and vicious demagogue. The result is that the reforms which might save the country fail; and later the people, at last roused to a realization of the evils which surround them, grasp at the promises of the imposter and follow him with hysterical and insane enthusiasm until their false leader directs their footsteps to the precipice, over which they fall to their destruction. If France had adopted the moderate reforms of Necker and Turgot she might have been saved from the terrible retribution of the French Revolution; if Rome had not rejected the leadership of Tiberius Gracchus, and later accepted that of Julius Cæsar, the Roman republic need not have fallen.