_Servius Tullius_.--Yes, Marcus, though I own you to have been the first
of mankind in virtue and goodness--though, while you governed, Philosophy
sat on the throne and diffused the benign influences of her
administration over the whole Roman Empire--yet as a king I might,
perhaps, pretend to a merit even superior to yours.
_Marcus Aurelius_.--That philosophy you ascribe to me has taught me to
feel my own defects, and to venerate the virtues of other men. Tell me,
therefore, in what consisted the superiority of your merit as a king.
_Servius Tullius_.--It consisted in this--that I gave my people freedom.
I diminished, I limited the kingly power, when it was placed in my hands.
I need not tell you that the plan of government instituted by me was
adopted by the Romans when they had driven out Tarquin, the destroyer of
their liberty; and gave its form to that republic, composed of a due
mixture of the regal, aristocratical, and democratical powers, the
strength and wisdom of which subdued the world. Thus all the glory of
that great people, who for many ages excelled the rest of mankind in the
arts of war and of policy, belongs originally to me.
_Marcus Aurelius_.--There is much truth in what you say. But would not
the Romans have done better if, after the expulsion of Tarquin, they had
vested the regal power in a limited monarch, instead of placing it in two
annual elective magistrates with the title of consuls? This was a great
deviation from your plan of government, and, I think, an unwise one. For
a divided royalty is a solecism--an absurdity in politics. Nor was the
regal power committed to the administration of consuls continued in their
hands long enough to enable them to finish any difficult war or other act
of great moment. From hence arose a necessity of prolonging their
commands beyond the legal term; of shortening the interval prescribed by
the laws between the elections to those offices; and of granting
extraordinary commissions and powers, by all which the Republic was in
the end destroyed.
_Servius Tullius_.--The revolution which ensued upon the death of
Lucretia was made with so much anger that it is no wonder the Romans
abolished in their fury the name of king, and desired to weaken a power
the exercise of which had been so grievous, though the doing this was
attended with all the inconveniences you have justly observed. But, if
anger acted too violently in reforming abuses, philosophy might have
wisely corrected that error. Marcus Aurelius might have new-modelled the
constitution of Rome. He might have made it a limited monarchy, leaving
to the emperors all the power that was necessary to govern a
wide-extended empire, and to the Senate and people all the liberty that
could be consistent with order and obedience to government--a liberty
purged of faction and guarded against anarchy.
_Marcus Aurelius_.--I should have been happy indeed if it had been in my
power to do such good to my country. But the gods themselves cannot
force their blessings on men who by their vices are become incapable to
receive them. Liberty, like power, is only good for those who possess it
when it is under the constant direction of virtue. No laws can have
force enough to hinder it from degenerating into faction and anarchy,
where the morals of a nation are depraved; and continued habits of vice
will eradicate the very love of it out of the hearts of a people. A
Marcus Brutus in my time could not have drawn to his standard a single
legion of Romans. But, further, it is certain that the spirit of liberty
is absolutely incompatible with the spirit of conquest. To keep great
conquered nations in subjection and obedience, great standing armies are
necessary. The generals of those armies will not long remain subjects;
and whoever acquires dominion by the sword must rule by the sword. If he
does not destroy liberty, liberty will destroy him.
_Servius Tullius_.--Do you then justify Augustus for the change he made
in the Roman government?
_Marcus Aurelius_.--I do not, for Augustus had no lawful authority to
make that change. His power was usurpation and breach of trust. But the
government which he seized with a violent hand came to me by a lawful and
established rule of succession.
_Servius Tullius_.--Can any length of establishment make despotism
lawful? Is not liberty an inherent, inalienable right of mankind?
_Marcus Aurelius_.--They have an inherent right to be governed by laws,
not by arbitrary will. But forms of government may, and must, be
occasionally changed, with the consent of the people. When I reigned
over them the Romans were governed by laws.
_Servius Tullius_.--Yes, because your moderation and the precepts of that
philosophy in which your youth had been tutored inclined you to make the
laws the rules of your government and the bounds of your power. But if
you had desired to govern otherwise, had they power to restrain you?
_Marcus Aurelius_.--They had not. The imperial authority in my time had
no limitations.
_Servius Tullius_.--Rome therefore was in reality as much enslaved under
you as under your son; and you left him the power of tyrannising over it
by hereditary right?
_Marcus Aurelius_.--I did; and the conclusion of that tyranny was his
murder.
_Servius Tullius_.--Unhappy father! unhappy king! what a detestable thing
is absolute monarchy when even the virtues of Marcus Aurelius could not
hinder it from being destructive to his family and pernicious to his
country any longer than the period of his own life. But how happy is
that kingdom in which a limited monarch presides over a state so justly
poised that it guards itself from such evils, and has no need to take
refuge in arbitrary power against the dangers of anarchy, which is almost
as bad a resource as it would be for a ship to run itself on a rock in
order to escape from the agitation of a tempest.