Cæsar’s law was a blanket measure, evidently drawn with great intelligence and showing the familiarity of an ex-provincial official with the concrete needs of the situation. It extended the jurisdiction of existing courts for cases of provincial extortion, in regard to the definition of the crime, the persons liable, and the penalties to be imposed. All the methods of extortion were brought within the scope of this act. The governor and his official staff were held liable, and the punishment, hitherto chiefly imposed by damages, was increased to deprivation of the right to bequeath property, and in some cases expulsion from the Senate and exile were inflicted on offending officials. Good as this legislation was, it contained a political element which prevented it from meeting the whole situation of provincial misrule. The triumvirate, we have seen, made a distinct bid for the favor of the mercantile classes when the previous bill was passed relieving the taxgatherers of Asia from the full extent of their contract. This new law only concerned the administration of senatorial officials; it did not put an end to extortion, nor did it stop the avenues of public corruption, because the financiers, the men who gathered about the official ruling class, were left to ply their nefarious trade unmolested. But Cæsar’s consulship broke the power of the senatorial aristocracy, which had been on the decline ever since the death of Sulla. By his alliance with Pompeius and Crassus a continuity of policy was secured, under which the old republican principle that cessation of office meant also cessation of power came to an end. The main business at the close of his year of service as Consul was to arrange that the system he had started should continue to work smoothly. The two candidates for the consulship were pledged supporters of the triumvirate. An even more important tool was the active and unscrupulous Clodius, who had made himself notorious because of the Bona Dea scandal. He was made a Tribune, and as such became the local agent in Rome of the triumvirs’ interests. He signalized his entrance into office by abolishing the small payment still exacted on the state distribution of grain to the people, and he organized the masses into guilds, each under a district leader, so that the populace could be controlled and could be worked together either as a political machine or as a mob, whether to vote or to do deeds of violence according to the password of their leader.