]
[Footnote 577: Caesar celebrated his Spanish triumph in October, B.C.
45.]
[Footnote 578: Caesar was appointed Dictator for Life, and consul for
ten years, (Appianus, ii. 106.)
Dictatorship was properly only a temporary office, and created in some
great emergency, or for a particular purpose. The first dictator was
T. Lartius, who was appoined, B.C. 501. The original period of office
was only six months (Livius, ix. 34), and many dictators abdicated,
that is, voluntarily resigned the dictatorship before the end of the
six months. The Dictator had that authority within the city which the
consuls, when in office, only had without. During his term of office
there were no consuls. Under the Dictator there was a Magister
Equitum, who was sometimes appointed probably by the Dictator. The
whole question of the dictatorship is one of considerable difficulty.
No dictator had been appointed for one hundred and twenty years before
the time when Sulla was appointed; and his dictatorship and that of
Caesar must not be considered as the genuine office. Caesar was the last
Roman who had the title of Dictator. The subject of the Dictatorship
is discussed by Niebuhr, _Roman History_, vol. i. 552, _English
Transl._]
[Footnote 579: The honours decreed to Caesar in the year before are
mentioned by Dion Cassius (43. c. 14). Among other things a large
statue of him was made which was supported on a figure of the earth
(probably a sphere); and there was the inscription--"Semideus,
Half-God.
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