The passage of the agrarian democratic measure, as it stood, was undertaken to fulfil engagements made with Pompeius, whose troops were especially concerned in this distribution of lands. Equally personal were the measures passed by the people to regularize the situation of the territories in the East, where Pompeius, after his conquests, had acted on his own initiative in making treaties, imposing taxation, and settling the terms of local administration. The personal relations between the two triumvirs were now drawn closer by the marriage of Cæsar’s daughter Julia to Pompeius; she was at this time twenty-two years old, and as long as she lived she prevented any open rupture between her husband and her father. In another legislative enactment Cæsar attested his loyal interpretation of the triumvirate compact rather than his desire to forward the public interests of the state. Crassus desired that the farmers of the taxes in the province of Asia should be relieved from the contract which they had made with the government. It was a shady piece of business; even Cicero, who was not apt to be critical where capitalistic interests were involved, called the scheme of Crassus shameful. It was defeated in the Senate by the determined efforts of Cato. The measure was afterwards jammed through the popular assembly in a form which relieved the taxgatherers of one-third of their financial burden. This was really a shrewd move to separate from the senatorial party the whole mercantile class, who normally acted solidly with them. They now looked upon the triumvirate combination as favorable to their interests, and so deprived the Senate of a solid support at a time when that body needed every element of the population in its unequal struggle with the triumvirs. Much more worthy than this act of special legislation was a measure for dealing with extortion on the part of provincial administrators. The Roman governors and their subordinates treated the provinces as legitimate spoil, by which they could balance the large amounts spent at home in political corruption. This system offered the most unwholesome example of ring rule. Every man in public life had a good chance of ruling a province at some time in his career, and there was no inducement to touch a well-tried system which had proved profitable to all concerned.