There was a total want of any real defence for the frontiers, and an indispensable preliminary to it was a considerable increase of the army.

The doubling of the pay was doubtless employed by Caesar to attach his soldiers firmly to him,( 42) but was not introduced as a permanent innovation on that account.

The former pay of 1 1/3 sesterces (3 1/4 pence) per day had been fixed in very ancient times, when money had an altogether different value from that which it had in the Rome of Caesar's day; it could only have been retained down to a period when the common day-labourer in the capital earned by the labour of his hands daily on an average 3 sesterces (7 1/2 pence), because in those times the soldier entered the army not for the sake of the pay, but chiefly for the sake of the--in great measure illicit-- perquisites of military service.

The first condition in order to a serious reform in the military system, and to the getting rid of those irregular gains of the soldier which formed a burden mostly on the provincials, was an increase suitable to the times in the regular pay; and the fixing of it at 2 1/2 sesterces (6 1/2 pence) may be regarded as an equitable step, while the great burden thereby imposed on the treasury was a necessary, and in its consequences a beneficial, course.
Of the amount of the extraordinary expenses which Caesar had to undertake or voluntarily undertook, it is difficult to form a conception.

The wars themselves consumed enormous sums; and sums perhaps not less were required to fulfil the promises which Caesar had been obliged to make during the civil war.
It was a bad example and one unhappily not lost sight of in the sequel, that every common soldier received for his participation in the civil war 20,000 sesterces (200 pounds), every burgess of the multitude in the capital for his non-participation in it 300 sesterces (3 pounds) as an addition to his aliment; but Caesar, after having once under the pressure of circumstances pledged his word, was too much of a king to abate from it.