OF ROME.
Though there is a concurrence of several causes which bring on the ruin
of a state, yet where luxury prevails, that parent of all our fantastick
imaginary wants, ever craving and ever unsatisfied, we may justly assign
it as the leading cause: since it ever was and ever will be the most
baneful to publick virtue. For as luxury is contagious from its very
nature, it will gradually descend from the highest to the lowest ranks,
until it has ultimately infected a whole people. The evils arising from
luxury have not been peculiar to this or that nation, but equally fatal
to all wherever it was admitted. Political philosophy lays this down as
a fundamental and incontestable maxim,[244] that all the most
flourishing states owed their ruin, sooner or later, to the effects of
luxury; and all history, from the origin of mankind, confirms this truth
by the evidence of facts to the highest degree of demonstration. In the
great despotick monarchies it produced avarice, dissipation,
rapaciousness, oppression, perpetual factions amongst the great, whilst
each endeavoured to engross the favour of the prince wholly to himself;
venality, and a contempt of all law and discipline both in the military
and civil departments. Whilst the people, following the pernicious
example of their superiors, contracted such a dastardly effeminacy,
joined to an utter inability to support the fatigues of war, as quickly
threw them into the hands of the first resolute invader. Thus the
Assyrian empire sunk under the arms of Cyrus with his poor but hardy
Persians. The extensive and opulent empire of Persia fell an easy
conquest to Alexander and a handful of Macedonians; and the Macedonian
empire, when enervated by the luxury of Asia, was compelled to receive
the yoke of the victorious Romans.
Luxury, when introduced into free states, and suffered to be diffused
without controul through the body of the people, was ever productive of
that degeneracy of manners, which extinguished publick virtue, and put a
final period to liberty. For as the incessant demands of luxury quickly
induced necessity, that necessity kept human invention perpetually on
the rack to find out ways and means to supply the demands of luxury.
Hence the lower classes at first sold their suffrages in privacy and
with caution; but as luxury increased, and the manners of the people
grew daily more corrupt, they openly set them up to sale to the best
bidder. Hence too the ambitious amongst the higher classes, whose
superior wealth was frequently their only qualification, first purchased
the most lucrative posts in the state by this infamous kind of
traffick, and then maintained themselves in power by that additional
fund for corruption, which their employments supplied, until they had
undone those they had first corrupted.
But of all the ancient republicks, Rome in the last period of her
freedom was the scene where all the inordinate passions of mankind
operated most powerfully and with the greatest latitude. There we see
luxury, ambition, faction, pride, revenge, selfishness, a total
disregard to the publick good, and an universal dissoluteness of
manners, first make them ripe for, and then complete their destruction.
Consequently that period, by showing us more striking examples, will
afford us more useful lessons than any other part of their history.
Rome, once the mighty mistress of the universe, owed her rise, according
to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the most curious and most exact inquirer
into the Roman antiquities, to a small colony of the Albans under the
conduct of Romulus, the supposed grandson of Numitor king of Alba. That
the Albans derived their origin from the Greeks seems highly probable
from the nature of the Alban and Roman monarchical government, which
appears to be plainly copied from Lycurgus.
The government first instituted by Romulus, the founder of this
extraordinary empire, was that perfect sort, as it is termed by
Dionysius and Polybius, which consisted of a due admixture of the regal,
aristocratick, and democratick powers. As this great man received the
crown as a reward for his superior merit, and held it by the best of all
titles, the willing and unanimous choice of a free people; and as he is
universally allowed to be the sole institutor of their first form of
government, I cannot help ranking him amongst the most celebrated
lawgivers and heroes of antiquity. Romulus’s plan of government, though
formed upon the model of Lycurgus, was evidently, in some respects,
superior to the Spartan. For the executive power in the Roman government
was lodged in one man only; the number of the senators was much greater,
and though the whole body of the Romans was formed into one regular
militia, yet the lowest class of the people were directed to apply
themselves to agriculture, grazing, and other lucrative employments; a
practice wholly prohibited to the free Spartans. The great employments
of the state were solely confined to the Patricians, or aristocratick
part; but the Plebeians, or commonalty, had in return the power of
choosing magistrates, enacting laws, and determining about all wars when
proposed by the king. But still their decrees were not final, for the
concurrence of the senate was absolutely necessary to give a sanction to
whatever the people had determined.
Whether the Romans would have continued the regal power in their
founder’s family by hereditary succession, cannot possibly be
determined, because, when Romulus was put to death by the Patricians for
aiming at more power than was consistent with their limited monarchy, he
left no children. This however is certain, that their monarchy continued
to be elective, and was attended with those disorders which are the
usual effects of that capital error in politicks, until the usurpation
of Tarquinius Superbus.
After the death of Romulus, Numa, a man of a very different genius, was
invited to the throne by the unanimous consent of the whole body of the
Romans. This worthy prince reclaimed his subjects from their savage
fondness for war and plunder, and taught them the arts of peace, and the
happiness of civil and social life, by instructing them in the great
duties of religion, or piety towards their gods, and the laws of justice
and humanity, which contained their duty towards their fellow creatures.
The long reign of this wise and good prince was the most remarkable, and
the most happy period of time Rome ever knew from her foundation to her
dissolution. For during the whole term of forty-three years, which was
the extent of his reign, the harmony of the Roman state was neither
interrupted by any civil dissension at home, nor the happiness of the
people disturbed by any foreign war or invasion. After the death of
Numa, who died universally lamented as the father of the people, Tullus
Hostilius, a man of real merit, was legally elected king, but, after a
victorious reign of thirty-two years, was destroyed with his whole
family by lightning, according to some authors, but, according to
others, was murdered by Ancus Marcius, grandson to Numa by his only
daughter, who looked upon his own right to the crown as prior to Tullus,
or his family. Ancus Marcius however received the crown by a free
election of the people, and died a natural death after a reign of
twenty-four years, in which he restored such of the religious
institutions of his grandfather Numa as had been neglected during the
reign of his predecessor. He greatly enlarged the city of Rome itself,
and made it a seaport by fortifying the haven at the mouth of the river
Tiber.
Lucius Tarquinius, a man of Greek extraction by his father’s side, and
admitted to the privilege of a Roman citizen under the reign of Ancus
Marcius, was raised to the throne for his uncommon merit, and showed
himself worthy of that high trust, which was reposed in him by the
Romans. He increased the number of the senators to three hundred,
greatly enlarged their territories, and beautified the city; and, after
an illustrious reign of thirty-eight years, was assassinated in his
palace by the contrivance of the two sons of Ancus Marcius, who hoped
after his death to recover the kingdom, which their father had been
possessed of. But their scheme was far from succeeding, for Tarquinius
was so well beloved by his people, that the persons who committed the
murder, were executed, and the sons of Ancus banished, and their estates
confiscated. Tullius Servius, who had married the daughter of
Tarquinius, succeeded to the crown by the artful management of his
mother-in-law, and by the favour of the people, though without the
concurrence either of the senate or Patricians. Tullius was certainly a
man of real merit, and, as I think, superior in point of abilities to
all the Roman kings, Romulus alone excepted. But as he seemed to affect
a democracy, and was chiefly supported by the people, he was always
disagreeable to the Patricians, who looked upon his advancement to the
crown as an illegal intrusion. But as he did most signal services to his
country, during a glorious reign of four and forty years, I cannot help
taking notice of some of his institutions, without the knowledge of
which it is hardly possible to form a perfect idea of the Roman
constitution.
Tullius ordered all the Romans to register their names and ages, with
those of their parents, wives and children, and the place of their
abode, either in the city or the country. At the same time he enjoined
them to give in upon oath a just valuation of their effects, on pain of
being whipped and sold for slaves if they failed in registering all
these particulars. From this register he formed his plan for a regular
and general militia, which was invariably followed by the Romans, until
the time of Marius. To effect this he divided the whole body of the
citizens into six classes. The first class consisted of those whose
possessions amounted to a hundred _minæ_.[245] These he armed in the
completest manner, and divided into eighty centuries; forty of which,
composed of the younger men, were appointed to take the field in time of
war; the other forty were assigned for the defence of the city. To these
eighty centuries of heavy armed foot he added eighteen centuries of
horse, selected out of those who had the largest estates, and were of
distinguished birth. Thus the first class contained ninety-eight
centuries. The second, third, and fourth classes consisted each of
twenty centuries only, and were composed of citizens, whose effects were
estimated at seventy-five, fifty, and five and twenty _minæ_; and their
arms were lighter according to their respective classes. To the second
class he added two centuries of armourers and axe-men. To the fourth
class two centuries of trumpeters and blowers on the horn, which
contained the martial musick of the army. The fifth class consisted of
those who were worth twelve _minæ_ and a half, which he divided into
thirty centuries, armed with darts and slings only, and were properly
irregulars. The sixth class, which was by much the most numerous, was
comprehended in one century only, and consisted of the poorest
citizens, who were exempted from all kind of taxes, as well as all
service in the army.
By this wise disposition the burthen of the war fell chiefly upon those
who were best able to support it. Thus, for instance, if he wanted to
raise twenty thousand men, he divided that number amongst the centuries
of the first five classes, and ordered each century to furnish its
respective quota. He then calculated the sum necessary for the support
of the war, which he divided in the same manner amongst the centuries,
and ordered every man to pay in proportion to his possessions. Hence the
rich, who were fewer in number, but divided into more centuries, were
not only obliged to serve oftener, but to pay greater taxes. For Tullius
thought it just, that they who had the greatest property at stake should
bear the greatest share of the burden, both in their persons and
fortunes: as he judged it equitable, that the poor should be exempted
from taxes, because they were in want of the necessaries of life; and
from the service; because the Roman soldiers served at that time at
their own expense; a custom which continued long after. For the Roman
soldiers received no pay, as Livy informs us,[246] until the three
hundred and forty-eighth year from the foundation of the city.... As the
rich, by this regulation, were subjected to the greatest share of the
expense and danger, Tullius made them an ample recompense by throwing
the chief power of the government into their hands, which he effected by
the following scheme, too artful for the penetration of the common
people.
By the fundamental constitution of the Romans, the electing magistrates,
both civil and military, the enacting or repealing laws, and the
declaring war, or concluding peace, were all determined by the suffrages
of the people. But as the people voted by their curiæ,[247] into ten of
which every tribe was divided, the meanest citizen had an equal vote
with the greatest: consequently as the poor were much more numerous than
the rich, they carried every point by a sure majority. Tullius altered
this method, assembled the people, and took their votes by centuries,
not by curiæ. This artful measure turned the scale, and transferred the
majority to the rich. For as the votes of the first class were first
taken, the votes of that class, which contained ninety-eight centuries,
if unanimous, always constituted a majority of three votes, which
decided the question without taking the votes of the five succeeding
classes, as they were in that case wholly useless.
Tullius had married his two daughters to Tarquinius and Aruns, the
grandsons of his predecessor, whose guardianship he had undertaken
during their minority. But what tie is strong enough to restrain
ambition! his younger daughter Tullia, the most ambitious, and most
detestable of her sex, unable to prevail upon her husband Aruns to join
in deposing her father, applied to her brother-in-law Tarquinius, whose
temper was congenial with her own, and offered to be his wife if he
would assert his just right, as she termed it, and attempt to supplant
her father. The offer was accepted, and the incestuous match agreed
upon, which was soon after completed by the death of her husband and
sister, who were privately despatched, that there might be no obstacle
remaining. Tarquinius, now the worthy husband of such a wife, attempted
in the senate to procure the deposition of Tullius, but failing in his
design, at the instigation of his impious wife, he procured the old king
to be openly assassinated in the street before his palace, and the
unnatural Tullia drove her chariot in triumph over the body of her
murdered father. By this complicated scene of adultery, murder, and
parricide, Tarquin, surnamed the Proud, forced his way to the throne,
and to usurpation added the most execrable and avowed tyranny. The
Patricians,[248] who had favoured his usurpation, either from their
hatred to Tullius and the Plebeians, or from the hopes of sharing in the
government, with which, according to Dionysius, they had been privately
allured, were the first who felt the bloody effects of his arbitrary
temper. Not only the friends of Tullius, and those whom he suspected as
uneasy under his usurpation, but all who were distinguished by their
superior wealth fell a sacrifice to his suspicion or avarice. All such
were accused, by his profligate emissaries, of many fictitious crimes,
but particularly of a conspiracy against his person; the common pretence
of all tyrants. As the tyrant himself sat as judge, all defence was
useless. Some received sentence of death, some of banishment, and the
estates of both were alike confiscated. The greater number of those that
were accused, knowing the true motives of the tyrant’s conduct, and
despairing of safety, voluntarily left the city; but some of the
greatest note were privately murdered by his orders, whose bodies could
never be found. When he had sufficiently thinned the senate by the
death, or banishment of its most valuable members, he filled up the
vacant seats with his own creatures. But as he allowed nothing to be
proposed or done there, but in conformity to his orders, he reduced it
to an empty form, without the least shadow of power. The Plebeians, who
beheld with pleasure the sufferings of the Patricians, which they
esteemed a just punishment for their behaviour under the reign of
Tullius, were quickly treated with much greater severity.[249] For the
tyrant not only abolished all the laws which Tullius had established to
secure them against the oppressions of the Patricians, but loaded them
with ruinous taxes, and prohibited all their publick religious
assemblies, that they might have no opportunity of meeting to form
secret conspiracies. Proceeding then upon the constant maxim of all
tyrants, that idleness in the people is the parent of sedition, he
exhausted them so much by the slavish drudgery, in which he kept them
constantly employed at the publick works, that the Patricians rejoiced
in their turn at the heavier miseries of the Plebeians, whilst neither
of them endeavoured to put a period to their common calamities. After
the Romans had groaned five and twenty years under this cruel and
ignominious bondage, the rape committed by Sextus, the eldest son of
Tarquin, upon Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, an eminent Patrician,
and near relation of the Tarquin family, produced a coalition of both
orders, which ended in the expulsion of Tarquin and his sons, and a
solemn abjuration of monarchical government.
The tyranny of Tarquin had made the very name of king so odious to the
Romans in general, that the Patricians, who were the chief conductors of
this revolution, found it no difficult matter to establish an
aristocracy upon the ruins of monarchy.[250] Two magistrates were
appointed, termed consuls, vested with the regal power, whose office was
annual and elective. The senate was filled up out of the most eminent
of the Plebeians, after they had first been created Patricians, and the
people restored to their right of holding assemblies, of giving their
votes and doing whatever they were entitled to by former customs. But
the power of the people was rather nominal than real. For though the
consuls were annually elected by the suffrages of the people, a
privilege which carried the appearance of a democracy, yet as the votes
were taken by centuries, not by tribes, the Patricians were generally
masters of the election. It is remarkable that, after the expulsion of
Tarquin, Dionysius constantly terms the new government an aristocracy.
It evidently appears too through the whole remaining part of his
history, that there was a selfish and haughty faction amongst the
Patricians, who affected a tyrannical oligarchy, and aimed at reducing
the Plebeians to a state of servitude. Valerius, surnamed Poplicola, the
most humane patriot of all those who were concerned in banishing the
Tarquins, introduced some beneficent laws, which, according to
Dionysius, gave great relief to the Plebeians. For by one he made it
capital for any person to exercise any magistracy over the Romans,
unless that office should be received from the people: as he ordered by
another, that no Roman should be punished without a legal trial; and
that if any Roman should be condemned by any magistrate to be fined,
whipped, or put to death, the condemned person might appeal from the
sentence of that magistrate to the people, and should be liable to no
punishment until his fate had been determined by their suffrages. A
plain proof that the Plebeians until that time laboured under grievances
not very consistent with their pretended liberty. Another proof may be
drawn from the wretched state of the Plebeians, under the cruel
oppressions arising from the avarice and extortions of the Patricians,
which first gave birth to those perpetual seditions, which fill the
history of that republick. For as the Roman soldiers, who were all free
citizens, not only paid their proportion of the taxes, but were obliged
to serve in the field at their own expense during the whole campaign,
this frequently obliged them to borrow money at high interest of the
Patricians, who had engrossed by far the greater part of publick wealth.
But as the Roman territories were often ravaged by their neighbours in
those wars, which Tarquin perpetually incited to procure the recovery of
his crown, the loss fell heaviest upon the Plebeians, who were
frequently stript of all their effects, and reduced to the utmost
poverty. Hence unable to pay the principal of their debts, joined to an
accumulated load of usury upon usury, they were surrendered by the
judges to the discretion of their creditors. These unfeeling wretches
confined their debtors in chains, tortured their bodies with whips, and
treated them with such inhumanity, that great numbers of the Romans were
in as bad a situation as the poor Athenians when Solon first undertook
the administration. The effects of this detestable treatment of people,
who had been taught to call themselves free, appeared about twelve years
after the erection of their new government. For when the Tarquins had
raised up a confederacy of thirty cities of the Latins against them, the
Plebeians peremptorily refused to enlist until a vote was passed for the
abolition of their debts. As persuasions had no effect, the senate met
upon the occasion. Valerius, the son of the humane Poplicola, pleaded
strongly in favour of the people, but was violently opposed by Appius
Claudius, a haughty and imperious man, who is termed by Dionysius an
abettor of the oligarchy, and head of that faction, which were enemies
to the people. The moderate men amongst the senators proposed, that the
debts should be paid out of the publick treasury; a measure which would
preserve the poor for the service of the state, and prevent any
injustice to the creditors. Salutary as this measure must seem, the
opposition was so great that nothing was agreed to, and the result of
the debates was, “that no decree should be made at present relating to
this affair, but that as soon as the war should be concluded with
success, the consuls should lay it before the senate, and take their
vote upon the occasion. That in the mean time no debt should be sued
for, and that the execution of all laws, except those relating to the
war, should be suspended.” This decree did not wholly quiet the ferment
amongst the people. Several of the poorer sort demanded an immediate
abolition of their debts, as the condition for their taking a share in
the dangers of the war, and looked upon this delay rather as an
imposition. The senate, who, as the event showed, were determined never
to grant their request, and yet were afraid of new commotions, resolved
to abolish the consulship, and all other magistracies for the present,
and to invest a new magistrate with absolute and unlimited power, and
subject to no account for his actions. This new officer was termed the
dictator, and the duration of his office was limited to six months, at
the end of which term the consuls were to resume their former authority.
The chief reason, as Dionysius informs us, which induced the senate to
make use of this dangerous expedient, was to evade that law which
Poplicola had procured in favour of the Plebeians, which made it death
for a magistrate to punish a Roman without a legal trial, or before he
was condemned by the people.[251] The senate then made a decree for the
election of a dictator, and the Plebeians ignorant, as Dionysius
observes, of the importance of that decree, not only confirmed the
resolutions of the senate, but gave up to them the power of choosing the
person who should be invested with that dignity. Titus Lartius, one of
the consuls, was nominated by his colleague according to the form at
that time agreed upon in the senate. When the dictator appeared in all
the pomp and grandeur of his new office, he struck a terror into the
most turbulent, and the people, thus tricked out of that law which was
their only protection, immediately submitted. Lartius, who seems to have
been one of the greatest men of his time, ordered in a general register
of all the Romans, and formed his army after that wise method first
instituted by Servius Tullius. When he took the field he persuaded the
Latins, by his singular address, to disband their forces and conclude a
truce, and thus diverted the impending storm without fighting. He then
returned home, and resigned his office before the time was expired,
without having exercised any one act of severity upon a single Roman. A
noble instance of moderation and publick virtue!
At the expiration of the truce, which was made for one year only, the
Latins took the field with a powerful army. Aulus Posthumius was created
dictator by the Romans, and a decisive battle was fought near the lake
Regillus, in which the Romans were completely victors. Sextus Tarquin
was killed upon the spot, and old Tarquin the father died soon after. As
soon as this war was ended, the senate, regardless of their promise,
ordered all those suits for debt to be determined according to law,
which had been suspended during the war. This faithless proceeding
raised such violent commotions amongst the people, that a foreign war
was judged the best expedient to divert the storm which threatened the
aristocracy. The haughty Appius Claudius, and Publius Servilius, a man
of a very different character, were nominated consuls by Posthumius and
his colleague, which seems a manifest invasion of the rights of the
people.[252] A war was resolved upon against the Volscians, but the
Plebeians again refused to obey the summons for enlisting. Servilius
adhered to the maxims of Valerius, and advised an immediate decree for
the abolition of the debts. But he was furiously opposed by the
inexorable Appius,[253] who called him a flatterer of the people, and
declared that it would be giving up the government to the people when
they had it in their power to live under an aristocracy. After much time
was spent in these debates, Servilius, who was a popular man, prevailed
upon the Plebeians, by his entreaties, and raised an army of volunteers,
with which he marched against the enemy. The Volscians, who placed their
chief dependance upon the disunion which prevailed amongst the Romans,
submitted to whatever terms the consul should think proper to impose,
and delivered three hundred hostages chosen out of their principal
families, as a security for their behaviour. But this submission was far
from real, and was calculated only to amuse the Romans and gain time for
their military preparations. War was once more decreed against the
Volscians; but whilst the senate was deliberating about the number of
the forces proper to be employed, a man advanced in years appeared in
the forum and implored the assistance of the people. Famine sat pictured
in his pale and meagre face,[254] and the squalid hue of his dress
indicated the extremes of poverty and wretchedness. This man, who was
not unknown to the people, and, according to report, had borne a command
in the army, first showed several honourable scars in his breast,
remains of the wounds he had received in the service of his country, and
then informed them: “that he had been present in eight and twenty
battles, and frequently received rewards bestowed only upon superior
bravery: that in the Sabine war his cattle were driven off by the enemy,
his estate plundered, and his house reduced to ashes: that under these
unhappy circumstances he was compelled to borrow money to pay the
publick taxes; that this debt, accumulated by usury, reduced him to the
sad necessity of selling the estate descended to him from his ancestors,
with what little effects he had remaining: but that all this proving
insufficient, his devouring debts, like a wasting consumption, had
attacked his person, and he, with his two sons, were delivered up as
slaves, and led away to the slaughterhouse by his creditors.” When he
had said this, he threw off his rags, and showed his back yet bleeding
from the scourge of his merciless master. This sight inflamed the people
greatly, but the debtors breaking out of their creditor’s houses, most
of whom were loaded with chains and fetters, raised their fury even to
madness. If any one desired them to take up arms in defence of their
country, the debtors showed their chains,[255] as the reward they had
met with for their past services, and asked with indignation, whether
such blessings were worth fighting for. Whilst numbers of them openly
declared that it was much more eligible to be slaves to the Volscians
than the Patricians. The senate, quite disconcerted by the violence of
the tumult, entreated Servilius to take the management of the people.
For an express was just arrived from the Latins, with advice that a
numerous army of the enemy had already entered their territories.
Servilius remonstrated to the people the consequences of disunion at so
critical a juncture, and pacified them by the assurance that the senate
would confirm whatever concessions he should make; he then ordered the
crier to proclaim that no citizen who voluntarily enlisted should be
subject to the demands or insults of his creditors whilst the army
continued in the field. The people now flocked in with cheerfulness, and
the levies were soon completed. Servilius took the field and defeated
the Volscians, made himself master of their camp, took several of their
cities, and divided the whole plunder amongst his soldiers. At the news
of this success the sanguinary Appius ordered all the Volscian hostages
to be brought into the forum,[256] there to be whipped and publickly
beheaded. And when at his return Servilius demanded a triumph, he loudly
opposed it, called him a factious man, and accused him of defrauding the
treasury of the booty, and prevailed upon the senate to deny him that
honour. Servilius, enraged at this usage, entered the city in triumph
with his army, amidst the acclamations of the people, to the great
mortification of the Patricians.
Under the following consulship the Sabines prepared to invade the
Romans, and the people again refused to serve unless the debts were
first abolished. Lartius, the first dictator, pleaded strongly for the
people, but the inflexible Appius proposed the nomination of a dictator,
as the only remedy against the mutiny. His motion was carried in the
senate by a majority of voices, and Manius Valerius, a brother to the
great Poplicola, was created dictator. Valerius, who was a man of great
honour, engaged his word to the Plebeians, that if they would serve
cheerfully upon this occasion, he would undertake the senate should
reward them by quieting the contests relating to their debts, and
granting whatever they could reasonably desire, and commanded at the
same time that no citizen should be sued for debt during his
administration. The people had so often experienced the publick virtue
of the Valerian family, and no longer apprehensive of being again
imposed upon, offered themselves in such crowds, that ten legions of
four thousand men each were levied, the greatest army of natives the
Romans had ever brought into the field. The dictator finished the
campaign with glory, was rewarded with a triumph, and discharged the
people from farther service. This step was not at all agreeable to the
senate,[257] who feared the people would now claim the performance of
the dictator’s promises. Their fears were just; for Valerius kept his
word with the people, and moved the senate that the promise they had
made to him might be taken into consideration. But the Appian faction
opposed it with the utmost virulence, and exclaimed against his family
as flatterers of the people, and introducers of pernicious laws.
Valerius, finding his motion over-ruled, reproached the senate for their
behaviour, and foretold the consequences which would attend it; and
quitting the senate abruptly called assembly of the people. After he had
thanked them for their fidelity and bravery, he informed them of the
usage he had met with in the senate, and declared how greatly both he
and they had been imposed upon, and resigning his office, submitted
himself to whatever treatment the people should think proper. The people
heard him with equal veneration and compassion, and attended him home
from the forum with repeated acclamations. The Plebeians now kept no
measures with the senate, but assembled openly, and consulted about
seceding from the Patricians. To prevent this step, the senate ordered
the consuls not to dismiss their armies, but to lead them out into the
field, under pretence that the Sabines were again preparing for an
invasion. The consuls left the city and encamped nearly together; but
the soldiers, instigated by one Sicinnius Bellutus, seized the arms and
ensigns to avoid violating their military oath, seceded from the
consuls, and after they had appointed Sicinnius commander in chief,
encamped on a certain eminence near the river Anio, which from that
event was always termed the _mons sacer_, or the holy mountain.
When the news of this secession was brought to Rome, the confusion was
so great, that the city had the appearance of a place taken by storm,
and the Appian faction were severely reproached as the cause of this
desertion. Their enemies at the same time making inroads up to the very
gates of Rome, increased the general consternation, as the Patricians
were terribly afraid they would be joined by the seceders. But the
soldiers behaved with so much decency and moderation, that the senate
after long debates sent deputies to invite them to return, with the
promise of a general amnesty. The offer was received with scorn, and the
Patricians were charged with dissimulation, in pretending ignorance of
the just demands of the Plebeians, and the true cause of their
secession. At the return of the deputies, the affair was again debated
in the senate. Agrippa Menenius, a man respectable for his superior
wisdom and thorough knowledge of the true principles of government, and
who was alike an enemy to tyranny in the aristocracy, and licentiousness
in the people, advised healing measures, and proposed to send such
persons as the people could confide in with full power to put an end to
the sedition in the manner they should judge most proper, without
farther application to the senate. Manius Valerius, the last dictator,
spoke next, and reminded the senate, “that his predictions of the evils
which would result from their breach of promise were now verified, that
he advised a speedy accommodation with the people, lest the same evils,
if suffered to make a farther progress, should become incurable: that in
his opinion the demands of the people would rise higher than the bare
abolition of debts, and that they would insist upon such security as
might be the firm guardian of their rights and liberty for the future.
Because the late institution of the dictatorship had superseded the
Valerian law which was before the only guardian of their liberty, and
the late denial of a triumph to the consul Servilius, who had deserved
that honour more than any man in Rome, evidently proved, that the people
were deprived of almost all those privileges they had formerly enjoyed,
since a consul and a dictator who showed the least concern for the
interests of the people, were treated with abuse and ignominy by the
senate: that he did not impute these arbitrary measures to the most
considerable and respectable persons amongst the Patricians, but to a
combination of proud and avaricious men wholly intent upon unwarrantable
gain; who by advancing large sums at excessive interest, had enslaved
many of their fellow-citizens, and by their cruel and insulting
treatment of their unhappy debtors, had alienated the whole body of the
Plebeians from the aristocracy: that these men, by forming themselves
into a faction, and placing Appius, a known enemy to the people and
abettor of the oligarchy, at their head, had under his patronage,
reduced the commonwealth to its present desperate situation.” He
concluded by seconding the motion of Menenius for sending ambassadours
to put a speedy end to the sedition upon the best terms they should be
able to obtain.
Appius, finding himself thus personally attacked, rose up and replied to
Valerius in a hot inflammatory speech full of the most virulent
invectives. He denied that he was ever guilty of enslaving his debtors:
“he denied too, that those who had acted in that manner could be charged
with injustice, since they had done no more than the laws allowed. He
affirmed that the imputation of being an enemy to the people, and
favouring oligarchy, arose from his steady adherence to the aristocracy,
and equally affected all those of superior worth, who like him disdained
to be governed by their inferiors, or to suffer the form of government
which they had inherited from their ancestors[258] to deviate into the
worst of all constitutions, a democracy. He recriminated upon Valerius,
and charged him with aiming at tyranny, by courting the most profligate
of the citizens, as the most effectual and shortest way of enslaving his
country. He termed the seceders, vile, mean wretches, a thoughtless
senseless multitude, whose present arrogance had been first inspired by
that old man, as he contemptuously called Valerius. He declared
absolutely against sending ambassadours, or making the least
concession, and advised rather to arm the slaves and send for assistance
from their allies the Latins, than submit to any thing that might
derogate from the power and dignity of the Patricians. He proposed, if
the seceders should appear in arms against them, to put their wives and
children to death before their faces by the most severe and ignominious
tortures. But if they would submit at discretion to the senate, he
advised to treat them with moderation.” This speech produced a violent
tumult in the senate, and the young Patricians who adhered to Appius
behaved with so much insolence, that the consuls threatened to exclude
them from the publick counsels, by a law which should fix the age for
the qualification of every senator. Nothing was determined at that time,
but in a few days, the moderate party, supported by the firmness of the
consuls, prevailed against the still inflexible Appius, and ten
ambassadours, at the head of whom were Menenius and Valerius, were sent
with full powers to treat with the seceders. After many debates,
Menenius in the name of the senate promised full redress of all their
grievances with respect to the debts, and offered to confirm this
promise by the solemn oaths of all the ambassadours. His offer was upon
the point of being accepted, when Lucius Junius, who affected the
surname of Brutus, a bold and able Plebeian, interposed and insisted
upon such a security from the senate as might protect the Plebeians for
the future from the power of their enemies, who might find an
opportunity of wreaking their vengeance on the people for the step they
had taken. When Menenius desired to know what security he required,
Junius demanded leave for the people to choose annually a certain number
of magistrates out of their own body, vested with the power of
defending their rights and liberties, and protecting their persons from
injury and violence. As this new and unexpected demand seemed of too
great consequence to be granted by the ambassadours, Valerius with some
others were sent to take the opinion of the senate upon that subject.
Valerius laid this demand before the senate, and gave his opinion that
the favour should be granted, and Appius, as usual, opposed it with
outrageous fury. But the majority, determined at all events to put a
period to the secession, ratified all the promises made by the
ambassadours, and granted the desired security. The seceders held their
assembly in the camp, and taking the votes by curiæ, elected five
persons for their annual magistrates, who were termed tribunes of the
people. By a law made immediately after the election, the persons of the
tribunes were rendered sacred; and the people obliged themselves to
swear by whatever was held most sacred that they and their posterity
would preserve it inviolably.
The erection of the tribunitial-power, which happened about seventeen
years after the expulsion of the kings, is certainly the æra from which
the liberty of the Roman people ought properly to be dated. All the
neighbouring states were at that time subject to aristocracy, where the
people had little or no share in the government, and it appears
evidently from the Roman historians that the Romans intended to
establish the same form of government at Rome after the abolition of
monarchy. For the senate, as Livy informs us,[259] gave a loose to that
unbounded joy which the death of Tarquin inspired, and begun to oppress
and injure the people, whom until that time they had courted with the
utmost assiduity. But Sallust is more full and explicit. For he
affirms,[260] “that after the expulsion of the kings, as long as the
fear of Tarquin and the burdensome war with the Etrurians kept the
Romans in suspense, the government was administered with equity and
moderation. But as soon as ever the dread of those impending dangers was
removed, the senate begun to domineer over the people and treat them as
slaves; inflicting death or scourging after the arbitrary manner of
despotick tyrants; expelling them from their lands, and arrogating the
whole power of government to themselves, without communicating the least
share of it to the Plebeians.” Thus the people, before the creation of
this magistracy, were amused with the name of liberty, whilst in fact
they had only changed the tyranny of one, for the more galling yoke of
three hundred. But the tribunicial-power proved an invincible obstacle
to the arbitrary schemes of the aristocratick faction, and at last
introduced that due admixture of democracy, which is so essentially
necessary to the constitution of a well regulated republick.
As a minute detail of a history so well known as that of the Romans
would be quite superfluous, I shall only observe, that the democratick
power in that republick did not arrive at its just state of
independence, until the Plebeians were not only entitled to the highest
posts and dignities, equally with the Patricians, but until the
plebiscita or decrees made by the people in their assembly by
tribes,[261] were confirmed to be equally binding as those made in their
assembly by centuries. This law was first made when the tyranny of the
decemvirs was abolished by the second secession of the people to the
Sacred Mountain, but was perpetually violated by the over-bearing power
of the aristocracy. But an event similar to that which occasioned the
first secession of the people, to which they properly owed the origin of
their liberty, was the cause of the third and last secession, which
fully completed that liberty, and gave the fatal blow to the arbitrary
aristocratick faction. Veturius, the son of Titus Veturius, who had been
consul and died insolvent, borrowed a sum of money of one Plotius to
defray the expenses of his father’s funeral. As the father was greatly
indebted to the same Plotius, he demanded of young Veturius the payment
of both debts which his father and he himself had contracted. As the
unhappy young man was utterly unable to satisfy the demand, Plotius
seized his unfortunate debtor, and confined him to the work of a slave,
until he had discharged both principal and interest. Veturius bore his
servitude with patience, and did his utmost to please his creditor. But
as he refused to gratify the detestable passion of the infamous Plotius
he treated him with the utmost inhumanity to force him to a compliance.
One day he had the good fortune to escape out of the house of his
merciless creditor, and fled to the forum, where he showed his back torn
with stripes and his body covered with blood, and explained the reason
of his shocking treatment. The people, enraged at so dreadful a
spectacle, demanded an absolute security against that law, which gave
the creditors such a shameful power over their insolvent debtors. For
though that law had been abolished near forty years before upon a like
occasion, yet the Patricians, by their superior power, had again revived
it. The consuls reported the affair to the senate, who committed Plotius
to prison, and ordered all those who were in custody for debt to be set
at liberty. The Plebeians, not satisfied with these trifling
concessions, insisted upon the absolute abolition of that inhuman law;
but they were opposed with equal animosity by the Patricians. Despairing
therefore of gaining their point by entreaties and remonstrances, they
retired in a body to the Janiculum, resolutely determined never to enter
the city, until they had received full satisfaction. The senate, alarmed
at this secession, had recourse to their last resource in all desperate
cases, the creation of a dictator. Q. Hortensius was nominated dictator
upon this occasion, a man of great temper and prudence, and a real
friend to liberty. As he was vested with absolute power by virtue of his
office, he totally abolished that law which had given such just cause of
uneasiness, and notwithstanding all the opposition of the senate,
revived and confirmed two laws which had been formerly made, though
constantly violated by the Patricians. One was, “that the decrees made
by the Plebeians should be equally obligatory to the Patricians:” the
other, “that all laws passed in the senate should be laid before the
comitia, or assemblies of the people, either to be confirmed or
rejected.” Thus the liberty, which the Plebeians had acquired by the
first secession, was confirmed in the plainest and strongest manner by
the last, which happened about two hundred and six years after. For the
Patricians, from that memorable æra, had scarce any other advantage
over the Plebeians, except what arose from their superior wealth, and
that respect which is naturally paid by inferiors to men of superior
birth.
It is evident, from that sudden change which the Plebeians experienced
in the behaviour of the Patricians at the death of Tarquin, that if the
senate could have supported themselves in that arbitrary power, which
they so visibly aimed at, the condition of the people would have been
just like that of the Polish peasants under their imperious lords. For
in that detestable aristocracy, the Patricians, not content with the
wealth of the republick, which centered chiefly in their own body, used
their utmost efforts to engross the entire possession of the lands. The
secession of the people, and the creation of the tribunes, defeated the
scheme they had formed for establishing an aristocratick tyranny. But
the frequent attempts to revive the Agrarian law prove undeniably that
the Patricians never lost sight of their ambitious views of aggrandizing
their families by an illegal usurpation of the conquered lands. Spurius
Cassius, a Patrician, was the first author of this law, about eight
years after the secession, with a view of raising himself to the regal
power by conciliating the affection and interest of the people. The law
itself was certainly just, and founded upon that equality in the
distribution of the land, which was a part of the constitution, as
settled by their founder Romulus. The plea therefore of Cassius, “that
the lands, which had been conquered by the blood and valour of the
people, should be taken from the rich and applied to the service of the
publick,” was founded upon the strictest equity, as well as the
fundamental principles of their constitution. Even Appius, the most
inveterate enemy to the people, acknowledged the justice of his
proposal, since he moved that commissioners should be appointed by the
senate to fix the boundaries of the land in question, and sell, or let
it out in farms for the benefit of the publick. This advice was
unanimously approved of, and the senate passed a decree, that ten of the
most ancient consular senators should be appointed commissioners to
carry this scheme into execution. This decree at once pacified the
people and ruined Cassius. For as he had proposed to divide two thirds
of the lands between the Latins and Hernici, whose assistance he at that
time courted, the people gave him up to the resentment of the senate,
who condemned him for plotting to introduce a single tyranny, and
ordered him to be thrown down the Tarpeian precipice.
This was the first rise of the famous agrarian law, which occasioned
such frequent contests between the senate and the people, and stirred up
the first civil war in Rome, which ended in the murder of both the
Gracchi, about three hundred and fifty years after. For the senate not
only evaded the nomination of the commissioners, as they had promised in
their decree, but, whenever that affair was brought upon the carpet,
they acted with an insincerity and artifice which are highly
inconsistent with the so much vaunted probity of the Roman senate.
Unless therefore we attend to the true reasons, upon which the agrarian
law was originally founded, we can never form a right judgment of the
perpetual dissensions between the senate and the tribunes upon that
subject. For though the chief blame, in all these contests, is most
commonly thrown upon the turbulent and seditious temper of the tribunes,
yet, if the real cause of those dissensions is impartially examined, we
shall find that most of them took rise from the avarice and injustice of
the Patricians. But though the tribunitial power was sometimes made
subservient to the interested views of some ambitious tribunes, yet no
argument can justly be drawn from the abuse of that power against its
real utility. For how much it was dreaded as the bulwark of the liberty
of the people, is evident from this consideration: that it was reduced
almost to nothing by Sylla, and afterwards totally absorbed by Augustus
and the succeeding emperors, who never looked upon the people as
thoroughly enslaved until they had annexed the tribunitial power to the
imperatorial dignity.
I remarked before, that when the highest dignities and employments in
the republick were laid open to the Plebeians, and the decrees of the
people had the same force, and affected the Patricians in the same
manner as those which were issued by the senate, the democratick power
was raised to an equality with the aristocratick. But as a third power,
or estate (as we term it) was wanting, capable of preserving the
requisite æquilibrium between the other two, it was impossible from the
very nature of the republican constitution, that the equality between
the two powers could be long supported. The concessions made by
Hortensius quieted indeed the civil dissensions; and it is remarkable
too, that after peace was restored to the republick, the progress of the
Roman conquests was so amazingly rapid, that in little more than two
hundred years from that period they had subjugated the most opulent
empires in the universe. But the same conquests, which raised the
republick to the summit of her grandeur, threw too much weight into the
democratick scale, and, by totally corrupting the Roman manners, brought
on the final ruin of their liberty and constitution. For as every
conquered province created successively a new government, these new
dignities immediately became new objects of avarice and ambition. But as
the command of the armies, the government of provinces, and the highest
posts in the state, were disposed of by the suffrages of the people; the
candidates for those lucrative employments left no means unattempted to
secure a majority. Hence, as the poor Plebeians were extremely numerous,
the man who was able to distribute the greatest largesses, or divert the
mob with the finest shows, was generally the most successful. When the
interest of the candidates was nearly equal, force was frequently made
use of to decide the contest; and it was not uncommon to see the
forum[262] covered with the slaughtered bodies of the electors. The
generals who were elected fleeced the provinces to enable themselves to
keep up their interest at home with the people, and connived at the
rapines of their soldiers to secure their affections. Hence at Rome
liberty degenerated into the most outrageous licentiousness, whilst the
soldiers gradually wore off that parental love for their country, which
was once the characteristick of the Romans, and attached themselves
wholly to the fortunes of their generals. Hence the most succesful
leaders began to look upon themselves no longer as servants, but as
masters of the republick, and each endeavoured to support his
pretensions by force of arms. The faction of Sylla and Marius filled the
city alternately with slaughter and rapine, as the fortune of their
respective leaders prevailed in the course of that destructive contest.
And Rome frequently felt the calamitous effects of war in her own
bowels, at a time when her victorious arms abroad were adding new
provinces to her dominions. These factions were far from expiring with
their leaders, but broke out again with the same baleful fury under the
first and second triumvirate. Each of these, strictly speaking, were no
more than coalitions of the same factions, where three chiefs united
their several parties to crush every other. When they had accomplished
this, and satiated their ambition, their avarice, and their private
resentments, by the most bloody proscriptions, they quarrelled about the
division of power, like captains of banditti about the division of
booty, with whom they agreed in principle, and differed only in degree.
These quarrels occasioned those civil wars, which gave the finishing
blow to the Roman republick. The ablest and most dangerous man, in each
triumvirate, proved at last the conqueror; and Julius Cæsar first put
those chains upon his country, which Augustus riveted beyond a
possibility of removal.
All the historians, from whom we have received any account of the Roman
affairs, agree unanimously in fixing their conquest of Antiochus the
Great, as the æra from whence we are to date the rise of luxury and
corruption amongst them. Livy assures us, that luxury was first
introduced into their city by the army of Manlius at their return from
Asia. They, he informs us, were the first who made Rome acquainted with
the finely ornamented couches, the rich carpets, the embroidered
hangings, and other expensive productions of the looms of Asia, with all
those elegant tables of various forms and workmanship, which were
esteemed so essential a part of that magnificence which they affected in
their furniture. They introduced wenches, who sung and played upon
different instruments, with dancers of anticks, to heighten the mirth
and indulgence of the table. To show to what height they carried the
expense and luxury of the table, he adds, with indignation, that a cook,
who, by their frugal and temperate ancestors, was looked upon, from his
very office, as the vilest slave in the household, was now esteemed an
officer of mighty consequence, and cookery was erected into an art,
which before was looked upon as the most servile kind of drudgery. Yet
new and strange as these first specimens might seem, Livy assures us,
that they were but trifles when compared to their succeeding luxury.
Before that fatal æra the Romans were poor, but they were contented and
happy, because they knew no imaginary wants: and whilst their manners
were virtuous, poverty itself was honourable, and added a new lustre to
every other virtue. But when once they had contracted a relish for the
luxury of Asia, they quickly found that the wealth of Asia was necessary
to support it; and this discovery as quickly produced a total change in
their manners. Before that time the love of glory, and a contempt of
wealth, was the ruling passion of the Romans. Since that time money was
the only object of their applause and desire. Before, ambition impelled
them to war, from a thirst of dominion; now avarice, for the sake of
plunder to support the expense of luxury. Before, they seemed a race of
heroes; they were now a gang of insatiable robbers. Formerly, when they
had reduced a people to obedience, they received them as their allies;
they now made the conquered nations their slaves. They fleeced the
provinces, and oppressed their friends. As the great offices, which
entitled the possessors to the command of armies, and the government of
provinces, were disposed of by the votes of the people, no method was
left unattempted to secure a majority of suffrages. The candidates for
these employments, not only exhausted their own fortunes, but strained
their credit to the utmost, to bribe the people with shows and
donatives. To this infamous period we must fix the rise of that torrent
of corruption, which so quickly deluged the Roman republick. The
successful candidates set out for their government, like hungry
emaciated wolves, to fatten upon the blood of the miserable provinces.
Cicero makes heavy complaints of the rapine and extortion of these
rapacious oppressors; and his orations against Verres, when accused by
the Sicilians, give us a complete idea of the behaviour of a Roman
governour in his province. The complaints of the oppressed provincials
were incessant; but every governour had his friends amongst the leading
men, whom he secured by a share of the plunder, and the weight of their
whole interest was applied to screen the criminal. Laws indeed were made
against this crime of peculation, but they were easily eluded, because
the judges, who were chosen out of the body of the people, were as
corrupt as the offenders, and were frequently their associates in
villany. Thus corruption made its way into the very vitals of the
republick. Every thing was venal, and the venality had made so rapid a
progress, even in the time of Jugurtha, which was about eighty years
after the defeat of Antiochus, as to occasion the severe sarcasm of that
prince, recorded by Sallust, which places the corruption of the Romans
in a stronger point of view, than the most laboured and pathetick
description of their historians. “That Rome had carried her venality to
so great a height, as to be ready to sell herself to destruction, if she
could but find a purchaser.” When the Romans had beggared the monarchs,
whom they vouchsafed to style their friends, and drained the provinces
until they had scarce any thing left to plunder; the same principle
which had induced them to pillage the universe, impelled them now to
prey upon one another.[263] Marius and Sylla were the first Romans who
set the fatal precedent, and were the first who bridled Rome with a
standing army. The civil power was compelled to give way to the
military, and from that period we may truly date the ruin of the Roman
liberty. The state continued to fluctuate between despotism and anarchy,
until it terminated irretrievably under the Cæsars, in the most
absolute, and most infernal tyranny that any people were ever yet
cursed with. Marius opened the bloody scene, and glutted his followers
with the blood and wealth of the friends of Sylla. Sylla repaid the
Marian faction in the same coin with usury. Battles were fought in the
very streets; and Rome, more than once, experienced all the horrors of a
city taken by storm from her own citizens. Personal resentment and
revenge for injuries received, were the pretence on both sides, but
plunder and confiscations seem to have been the chief motives. For the
rich were equally looked upon as enemies, and equally proscribed by both
factions, and they alone were safe who had nothing worth taking.
If we connect the various strokes, interspersed through what we have
remaining of the writings of Sallust, which he levelled at the vices of
his countrymen, we shall be able to form a just idea of the manners of
the Romans in the time of that historian. From the picture, thus
faithfully exhibited, we must be convinced, that not only those shocking
calamities, which the republick suffered during the contest between
Marius and Sylla, but those subsequent, and more fatal evils, which
brought on the utter extinction of the Roman liberty and constitution,
were the natural effects of that foreign luxury, which first introduced
venality and corruption. Though the introduction of luxury from Asia
preceded the ruin of Carthage in point of time, yet, as Sallust informs
us, the dread of that dangerous rival restrained the Romans within the
bounds of decency and order.[264] But as soon as ever that obstacle was
removed,[265] they gave a full scope to their ungoverned passions. The
change in their manners was not gradual, and by little and little, as
before, but rapid and instantaneous. Religion, justice, modesty,
decency, all regard for divine or human laws, were swept away at once by
the irresistible torrent of corruption. The nobility strained the
privileges annexed to their dignity,[266] and the people their liberty,
alike into the most unbounded licentiousness. Every one made the
dictates of his own lawless will his only rule of action. Publick
virtue, and the love of their country, which had raised the Romans to
the empire of the universe, were extinct. Money,[267] which alone could
enable them to gratify their darling luxury, was substituted in their
place. Power, which alone could enable them to gratify their darling
dominion, honours, and universal respect, were annexed to the possession
of money. Contempt, and whatever was most reproachful, was the bitter
portion of poverty; and to be poor, grew to be the greatest of all
crimes in the estimation of the Romans. Thus wealth and poverty
contributed alike to the ruin of the republick. The rich employed their
wealth in the acquisition of power,[268] and their power in every kind
of oppression and rapine, for the acquisition of more wealth. The
poor,[269] now dissolute and desperate, were ready to engage in every
seditious insurrection, which promised them the plunder of the rich, and
set up both their liberty and their country to sale to the best bidder.
The republick,[270] which was the common prey to both, was thus rent to
pieces between the contending parties. As an universal selfishness is
the genuine effect of universal luxury, so the natural effect of
selfishness is to break through every tie, both divine and human, and
to stick at no kind of excesses in the pursuit of wealth, its favourite
object. Thus the effects of selfishness will naturally appear in
irreligion,[271] breach of faith, perjury, a contempt of all the social
duties, extortion, frauds in our dealings, pride, cruelty, universal
venality and corruption. From selfishness arises that vicious ambition
(if I may be allowed the term) which Sallust rightly defines, “the lust
of domination.”[272] Ambition as a passion, precedes avarice; for the
seeds of ambition seem almost to be innate. The desire of pre-eminence,
the fondness for being distinguished above the rest of our
fellow-creatures, attends us from the cradle to the grave. Though as it
takes its complexion, so it receives its denomination from the different
objects it pursues, which in all are but the different means of
attaining the same end. But the lust of domination, here mentioned by
Sallust, though generally confounded with ambition, is in reality a
different passion, and is, strictly speaking, only a different mode of
selfishness. For the chief end which we propose, by the lust of
domination, is to draw every thing to centre in ourselves, which we
think will enable us to gratify every other passion. I confess it may be
alleged, that self-love and selfishness both arise from the general law
of self-preservation, and are but different modes of the same
principle. I acknowledge, that if we examine strictly all those heroick
instances of love, friendship, or patriotism, which seem to be carried
to the most exalted degree of disinterestedness, we shall probably find
the principle of self-love lurking at the bottom of many of them. But,
if we rightly define these two principles, we shall find an essential
difference between our ideas of self-love, and selfishness. Self-love,
within its due bounds, is the practice of the great duty of
self-preservation, regulated by that law which the great author of our
being has given for that very end. Self-love therefore is not only
compatible with the most rigid practice of the social duties, but is in
fact a great motive and incentive to the practice of all moral virtue.
Whereas selfishness, by reducing every thing to the single point of
private interest, a point which it never loses sight of, banishes all
the social virtues, and is the first spring of action, which impels to
all those disorders, which are so fatal to mixed government in
particular, and to society in general. From this poisonous source
Sallust deduces all those evils,[273] which spread the pestilence of
corruption over the whole face of the republick, and changed the mildest
and most upright government in the universe into the most inhuman, and
most insupportable tyranny. For as the lust of domination can never
possibly attain its end without the assistance of others, the man, who
is actuated by that destructive passion, must, of necessity, strive to
attach to himself a set of men of similar principles, for the
subordinate instruments. This is the origin of all those iniquitous
combinations, which we call factions. To accomplish this,[274] he must
put on as many shapes as Proteus; he must ever wear the mask of
dissimulation, and live a perpetual lie. He will court the friendship of
every man, who is capable of promoting, and endeavour to crush every
man, who is capable of defeating his ambitious views. Thus his
friendship and his enmity will be alike unreal, and easily convertible,
if the change will serve his interest. As private interest is the only
tie which can ever connect a faction,[275] the lust of wealth, which was
the cause of the lust of domination, will now become the effect, and
must be proportional to the sum total of the demands of the whole
faction; and, as the latter know no bounds, so the former, will be alike
insatiable. For when once a man is inured to bribes in the service of
faction,[276] he will expect to be paid as well for acting for, as for
acting against the dictates of his conscience. A truth, which every
minister must have experienced, who has been supported by a faction, and
which a late great minister (as he frankly confessed) found to be the
case with him during his long administration. But how deeply soever a
state may be immersed in luxury and corruption, yet the man who aims at
being the head of a faction for the end of domination,[277] will at
first cloak his real design under an affected zeal for the service of
the government. When he has established himself in power, and formed his
party, all who support his measures will be rewarded as the friends; all
who oppose him will be treated as enemies to the government. The honest
and uncorrupt citizen will be hunted down as disaffected, and all his
remonstrances, against mal-administration, will be represented as
proceeding from that principle. The cant term, _disaffection_, will be
the watch-word of the faction; and the charge of disaffection, that
constant resource of iniquitous ministers, that infallible sign that a
cause will not stand the test of a fair inquiry, will be perpetually
employed by the tools of power to silence those objections which they
want argument to answer. The faction will estimate the worth of their
leader,[278] not by his services to his country, for the good of the
publick will be looked upon as obsolete and chimerical; but his ability
to gratify, or screen his friends, and crush his opponents. The leader
will fix the implicit obedience to his will, as the test of merit to his
faction: consequently all the dignities, and lucrative posts will be
conferred upon persons of that stamp only, whilst honesty and publick
virtue will be standing marks of political reprobation. Common justice
will be denied to the latter in all controverted elections, whilst the
laws will be strained, or over-ruled in favour of the former. Luxury is
the certain forerunner of corruption, because it is the certain parent
of indigence: consequently a state so circumstanced will always furnish
an ample supply of proper instruments for faction. For as luxury
consists in an inordinate gratification of the sensual passions,[279]
the more the passions are indulged they grow the more importunately
craving, until the greatest fortune must sink under their insatiable
demands. Thus luxury necessarily produces corruption. For as wealth is
essentially necessary to the support of luxury, wealth will be the
universal object of desire in every state where luxury prevails:
consequently all those who have dissipated their private fortunes in the
purchase of pleasure, will be ever ready to enlist in the cause of
faction for the wages of corruption. A taste for pleasure immoderately
indulged, quickly strengthens into habit, eradicates every principle of
honour and virtue, and gets possession of the whole man. And the more
expensive such a man is in his pleasures, the greater lengths he will
run for the acquisition of wealth for the end of profusion. Thus the
contagion will become so universal, that nothing but an uncommon share
of virtue can preserve the possessor from infection. For when once the
idea of respect and homage is annexed to the possession of wealth
alone,[280] honour, probity, every virtue and every amiable quality
will be held cheap in comparison, and looked upon as awkward and quite
unfashionable. But as the spirit of liberty will yet exist in some
degree in a state which retains the name of freedom, even though the
manners of that state should be generally depraved, an opposition will
arise from those virtuous citizens, who know the value of their
birthright, _liberty_, and will never submit tamely to the chains of
faction. Force then will be called in to the aid of corruption,[281] and
a standing army will be introduced. A military government will be
established upon the ruins of the civil, and all commands and
employments will be disposed of at the arbitrary will of lawless power.
The people will be fleeced to pay for their own fetters, and doomed,
like the cattle, to unremitting toil and drudgery for the support of
their tyrannical masters. Or, if the outward form of civil government
should be permitted to remain, the people will be compelled to give a
sanction to tyranny by their own suffrages, and to elect oppressors
instead of protectors.
From this genuine portrait of the Roman manners, it is evident to a
demonstration, that the fatal catastrophe of that republick (of which
Sallust himself was an eye witness) was the natural effect of the
corruption of their manners. It is equally as evident from our author,
and the rest of the Roman historians, that the corruption of their
manners was the natural effect of foreign luxury, introduced and
supported by foreign wealth. The fatal tendency of these evils, was too
obvious to escape the notice of every sensible Roman, who had any regard
for liberty, and their ancient constitution. Many sumptuary laws were
made to restrain the various excesses of luxury; but these efforts were
too feeble to check the over-bearing violence of the torrent. Cato
proposed a severe law, enforced by the sanction of an oath, against
bribery and corruption at elections; where the scandalous traffick of
votes was established by custom as at a publick market. But, as Plutarch
observes,[282] he incurred the resentment of both parties by that
salutary measure. The rich were his enemies, because they found
themselves precluded from all pretensions to the highest dignities; as
they had no other merit to plead but what arose from their superior
wealth. The electors abused, cursed, and even pelted him as the author
of a law which deprived them of the wages of corruption, and reduced
them to the necessity of subsisting by labour.[283] But this law, if it
really passed, had as little effect as any of the former; and like the
same laws in our own country, upon the same occasion, was either evaded
by chicane, or over-ruled by power. Our own septennial scenes of
drunkenness, riot, bribery, and abandoned perjury, may serve to give us
an idea of the annual elections of the Romans in those abominable
times.[284] Corruption was arrived at its last stage, and the depravity
was universal. The whole body of the unhappy republick was infected, and
the distemper was utterly incurable. For those excesses which formerly
were esteemed the vices of the people,[285] were now, by the force of
custom fixed into habit, become the manners of the people. A most
infallible criterion, by which we may ascertain the very point of time,
when the ruin of the any free state, which labours under these evils,
may be naturally expected.
The conspiracies of Catiline and Cæsar against the liberty of their
country, were but genuine effects of that corruption, which Sallust has
marked out to us, as the immediate cause of the destruction of the
republick. The end proposed by each of these bad men, and the means
employed for that end, were the same in both. The difference in their
success arose only from the difference of address and abilities in the
respective leaders. The followers of Catiline, as Sallust informs us,
were the most dissolute, the most profligate, and the most abandoned
wretches, which could be culled out of the most populous and most
corrupt city of the universe.[286] Cæsar, upon the same plan, formed his
party, as we learn from Plutarch out of the most infected, and most
corrupt members of the very same state.[287] The vices of the times
easily furnished a supply of proper instruments. To pilfer the publick
money,[288] and to plunder the provinces by violence, though
state-crimes of the most heinous nature, were grown so familiar by
custom, that they were looked upon as no more than mere
office-perquisites. The younger people, who are ever most ripe for
sedition and insurrection, were so corrupted by luxury,[289] that they
might be deservedly termed, “an abandoned race, whose dissipation made
it impracticable for them to keep their own private fortunes; and whose
avarice would not suffer their fellow-citizens to enjoy the quiet
possession of theirs.”
It is not at all strange that Rome thus circumstanced should fall a
victim to the corruption of her own citizens: nor that the empire of the
universe, the toil and labour of ages, to which the Romans had waded
through seas of blood, should be destined to feed the detestable vices
of a few monsters, who were a disgrace even to human nature. The total
change of the Roman constitution, the unlimited tyranny of the emperors,
and the abject slavery of the people, were all effects of the same
cause, extended in degree by a natural progression. The Romans in fact
were no more; the name indeed subsisted, but the idea affixed to that
name, was as totally changed as their ancient constitution. In the time
of Pyrrhus the Roman senate appeared an assembly of kings to his
ambassadour Cyneas. When the east had felt the force of the Roman arms,
the most despotick princes received the orders of a Roman senate, and
executed them with as prompt obedience, as a slave would do the commands
of his master. A deputy from the Roman senate made a haughty monarch
tremble at the head of a victorious army, compelled him to resign all
his conquests, and return ingloriously home, by a single motion of his
walking-stick.[290]
What an elevated idea must this give us of the Roman manners, whilst
that haughty people retained their freedom! Nothing is more grand;
nothing more striking. Shift but the scene, and view the manners of the
Romans when enslaved. Nothing is so abjectly servile, nothing so
despicable. We see the Roman senate deifying the worst of mankind;
wretches, who had sunk even below humanity, and offering the adoration
of incense to these idols of their own making, who were more
contemptible than the very stone and wooden representatives of their
deities. Instead of giving law to monarchs, and deciding the fate of
nations, we see the august Roman senate run trembling like slaves at the
summons of their master Domitian,[291] to debate in form about the
important business of dressing a turbot!! The majesty of the Roman
people, which received the tributary homage of the universe, expired
together with their liberty. That people, who disposed of the highest
offices in the government, the command of armies, provinces and
kingdoms, were sunk into a herd of dispirited slaves. Their total
insignificancy screened them from the fatal effects of the caprices of
their tyrants. They dragged on a wretched being in a state of idleness
and poverty in the midst of slavery, and the utmost extent of their
wishes amounted to no more, than bread for their daily subsistence, and
diversions for their amusement.[292] The emperors supplied the one by
their frequent largesses of corn, and gratified the other by their
numerous publick shows. Hence historians observe, that the most infamous
of their tyrants were as fond of rareeshows, as the mob themselves, and
as they were by much the most profuse of all their emperors, their
deaths were always most regretted by the people. So striking is the
contrast between a state when blessed with liberty, and the same state
when reduced to slavery by the corruption of its people!
As I have already made some reflections upon that passion for theatrical
entertainments, which prevailed at Athens, I cannot help observing, that
after the introduction of luxury, the fondness for that kind of
diversion amongst the Romans, was at least equal to that of the
Athenians. The Romans seem to have been strangers to every kind of
stage-plays for the first four hundred years. Their first attempts of
that kind were rude and simple, and not unlike the ancient mummery at
our country wakes, or Christmas gambols. The regular drama was imported
together with the luxury of Greece, but every species of this kind of
entertainment, whether tragedy, comedy, farce, or pantomime, was
comprehended under the general denomination of stage-plays,[293] and the
different performers alike ranged under the general term of
players.[294] The profession itself was reckoned scandalous, and proper
only for slaves, and if once a Roman citizen appeared upon the stage, he
immediately forfeited his right of voting, and every other privilege of
a free man. Upon this account Cicero seems to lament the fate of his
friend Roscius, when he tells us, “that he was so superior to all, as a
player,[295] that he alone seemed worthy of appearing upon the stage:
but of so exalted a character, as a man, that of all men he deserved
least to be doomed to so scandalous a profession.” Suetonius, speaking
of the licentiousness and insolence of the players, takes notice of an
ancient law, which empowered the prætors and œdiles to whip those
players publickly, who gave the least offence, or did not perform to
the satisfaction of the people. Though Augustus[296] as the same
historian informs us, exempted players from the ignominy of that law,
yet he took care to restrain them within the bounds of decency and good
manners.[297] For he ordered Stephanio, a celebrated comedian, to be
whipped publickly through all the theatres, and afterwards banished him,
for presuming privately to keep a Roman matron disguised under the habit
of his boy. Upon a complaint from the prætor he made Hylas the pantomime
be lashed openly in the court of his own palace, to which place the
offender had fled for refuge; and banished Pylades, one of the most
eminent players, not only from Rome but even from Italy, for affronting
one of the audience who had hissed him upon the stage. But these
restraints seem to have expired with Augustus. For we find the pride and
insolence of the players carried to so great a height in the reign of
his successor Tiberius, as to occasion their total banishment. The
fondness of the populace for the entertainments of the theatre, and the
folly of the degenerate nobility, were the causes of this alteration.
For both Pliny and Seneca assure us, that persons of the very first rank
and fashion were so scandalously mean, as to pay the most obsequious
court to the players, to dangle at their levees, to attend them openly
in the streets like their slaves; and treat them like the masters,
instead of the servants of the publick.[298] Every eminent player had
his party, and these ridiculous factions interested themselves so warmly
in the cause of their respective favourites, that the theatres became a
perpetual scene of riot and disorder. The nobility mingled with the mob
in these absurd conflicts;[299] which always ended in bloodshed, and
frequently in murder. The remonstrances and authority of the magistrates
had so little effect, that they were obliged to have recourse to the
emperor. Bad as Tiberius was, yet he was too wise to tolerate such
shameful licentiousness. He laid the case before the senate, and
informed them, that the players were the cause of those scandalous riots
which disturbed the repose of the publick: that they spread lewdness
and debauchery through all the chief families; that they were arrived
to such a height of profligacy and insolence, through the protection of
their factions, that the authority of the senate itself was requisite to
restrain them within proper bounds. Upon this remonstrance they were
driven out of Italy as a publick nuisance;[300] and Suetonius informs
us, that all the frequent and united petitions of the people could never
prevail upon Tiberius to recall them.
Augustus affected an extreme fondness for all kinds of diversion; he
invited the most celebrated players of every denomination into Italy,
and treated the people, at an immense expense, with every kind of
entertainment, which the theatre or circus could furnish. This is
remarked as an instance of that refined policy of which he was so
thorough a master. For that artful prince was not yet firmly settled in
his newly usurped power. He well knew, that if he gave the people time
to cool and reflect, they might possibly thwart the execution of his
ambitious schemes. He therefore judged that the best expedient to
prepare them for the yoke of slavery would be, to keep them constantly
intoxicated by one perpetual round of jollity and diversions. That this
was the opinion of thinking people, at that time, is evident from that
remarkably pertinent answer of Pylades the player to Augustus,
transmitted to us by Dion Cassius. Pylades, as I have already observed,
had been banished by Augustus for a misdemeanor, but pardoned and
recalled to gratify the humour of the people. At his return, when
Augustus reproved him for quarrelling with one Bathyllus, a person of
the same profession, but protected by his favourite Mæcenas; Pylades is
reported to have made this bold and sensible answer. “It is your true
interest, Cæsar, that the people should idle away that time upon us and
our affairs, which they might otherwise employ in prying too narrowly
into your government.”[301]
I am far from being an enemy to the stage. On the contrary, I think the
stage under proper regulations might be rendered highly useful. For of
all our publick diversions, the stage, if purged from the obscenity of
farce, and the low buffoonery of pantomime, is certainly capable of
affording infinitely the most rational, and the most manly
entertainment. But when I see the same disorders in our own theatres,
which were so loudly complained of in the time of Tiberius; when the
ridiculous contests between contending players are judged to be of such
mighty importance, as to split the publick into the same kind of
factions; when these factions interest themselves so warmly in the
support of the supposed merit of their respective favourites, as to
proceed to riots, blows, and the most extravagant indecencies; I cannot
help wishing for the interposition of the reforming spirit of Augustus.
And when I see the same insatiable fondness for diversions, the same
unmeaning taste (so justly ridiculed by Horace in his countrymen)
prevail in our own nation,[302] which mark the most degenerate times of
Greece and Rome, I cannot but look upon them as a certain indication of
the frivolous and effeminate manners of the present age.
[247] Romulus had divided the whole people into thirty curiæ,
ten of which composed a tribe. At their comitia or general
assemblies, the people divided into their respective curiæ and
gave their votes man by man. The majority of votes in each
curia passed for the voice of the whole curia, and the majority
of the curiæ for the general determination of the whole people.
Tullius on the contrary took their votes only by centuries, the
whole number of which amounted to one hundred and ninety-three,
into which he had subdivided the six classes. But as the first
class alone, which was composed wholly of the rich, contained
ninety-eight of these centuries, if the centuries of the first
class were unanimous, which, as Dionysius informs us, was
generally the case, they carried every point by a sure majority
of three.... If they disagreed, Tullius called the centuries of
the second class, and so on until ninety-seven centuries agreed
in one opinion, which made a majority of one. If the numbers
continued equal, that is ninety-six on each side of the
question, after the five first classes had voted; Tullius
called up the sixth class which was composed wholly of the
poorest people, and contained but one century, and the vote of
this century determined the question.... But this case, as
Dionysius observes, happened so very rarely; that even the
votes of the fourth class were seldom called for, and thus the
votes of the fifth and sixth were generally useless.
Consequently when the people voted by their curiæ, where the
vote of every individual was taken, the poor who were much the
most numerous, might always be secure of a great majority....
But when the votes were taken by centuries, according to the
new method instituted by Tullius, that numerous body of the
poor, which composed the single century of the sixth class, and
consequently had but one vote, became wholly insignificant.
[244] Dionys. Halicarn. cap. 2. p. 137. Edit. Wechel.
[245] About three hundred pounds.
[246] Liv. lib. 4. p. 276.
[248] Dionys. Halicarn. lib. 4. p. 182. edit. 1546.
[249] Dionys. Halicarn. id. ibid.
[250] Dionys. Halicarn. lib. 5. p. 205.
[251] Dionys. Halicarn. lib. 5. p. 247.
[252] Dionys. Halicarn. lib. 6. p. 255.
[253] Dionys. Halicarn. lib. 6. p. 266.
[254] I have chiefly followed Livy in his beautiful relation of
this affair, as the description he gives of this unhappy
object, is not only much more striking than that of Dionysius,
but one of the most pathetick I ever met with in history. Liv.
lib. 2. p. 92.
[255] Dionys. Halicarn. lib. 61. p. 268.
[256] Dionys. Halicarn. lib. 6. p. 270.
[257] Dionys. Halicarn. lib. 6. p. 276...77.
[258] It is remarkable that Appius terms the aristocracy, which
at that very time was hardly seventeen years standing, the form
of government which they had inherited from their ancestors.
[259] Liv. lib. 2. p. 91.
[260] Sallust. Fragment. apud Augustin. de civitate Dei. lib.
2. cap. 18. edit. Froben. 1569.
[261] In the comitia tributa or assemblies by tribes the people
voted in the same manner, as in the comitia curiata or
assemblies by curiæ. The majority of single votes in every
tribe constituted the voice of that tribe, and the majority of
the tribes decided the question. But the Patricians conscious
of their superiority in the comitia centuriata or assemblies by
centuries, constantly refused to obey the plebiscita or decrees
made by the people in their assemblies by tribes, which they
insisted were binding to the Plebeians only. After the
abolition of the decemvirate the people obtained a law: ...
“that all laws passed in their assemblies by tribes should have
equal force with those made in the assemblies by centuries, and
should be equally obligatory to all the Romans without
distinction.”
[262] The place of election.
[263] Proscriptiones innoxiorum ob divitias, cruciatus virorum
illustrium, vastam urbem fuga et cædibus, bona civium miserorum
quasi Cimbricam prædum, venum aut dono datam. Sall. Frag. p.
142.
[264] Ante Carthaginem deletam ... metus hostilis in bonis
artibus civitatem retinebat. Sall. Bell. Jug. p. 80.
[265] Postquam remoto metu Punico mores non paulatim ut antea,
sed torrentis modo præcipitati. Sall. Frag. p. 139.
... Rapere, consumere, sua parvi pendere, aliena cupere,
pudorem, pudicitiam, divina humana promiscua, nihil pensi,
neque moderati habere. De Bell. Cat. pag. 8.
[266] Cæpere nobilitas dignitatem, populus libertatem in
lubidinem vertere. Bell. Jug. p. 80.
[267] Postquam divitiæ honori esse cœperunt, et eas gloria,
imperium, potentia sequebatur hebescere virtus, paupertas
probro haberi, innocentia pro malevolentia duci cæpit. Bell.
Cat. p. 8.
[268] Ita cum potentia avaritia sine modo, modestiaque
invadere, polluere, et vastare omnia, nihil pensi neque sancti
habere. p. 81.
Sibi quisque ducere, trahere rapere. De Bell. Jug. p. 81.
[269] Eos paulatim expulsos agris, inertia atque inopia
incertas domos habere subegit: cæpere alienas opes petere,
libertatem suam cum Republica venalem habere. Sall. Orat. 2. ad
Cæsarem de Repub. Ordinand. p. 197.
[270] Ita omnia in duas partes abstracta sunt: respublica, quæ
media fuerat, dilacerata. De Bell. Jug. p. 80.
[271] Pecuniæ cupido fidem, probitatem ceterasque bonas artes
subvertit; pro his superbiam, crudelitatem deos negligere,
omnia venalia habere edocuit. De Bell. Cat. p. 7.
[272] Cupido Imperii, id. p. 7.
[273] Primo pecuniæ, dein imperii cupido crevit, ea quasi
materies omnium malorum fuere.... Post ubi contagio, quasi
pestilentia, invasit, civitas immutata, imperium ex justissimo
atque optumo, crudele intolerandumque factum. De Bell. Cat. p.
7.
[274] Aliud clausum in pectore, aliud promptum in lingua
habere, amicitias, inimicitiasq; vultum, quam ingenium bonum
habere. Ibid.
[275] Malitia præmiis exercetur; ubi ea demseris, nemo omnium
gratuito malus est. p. 200.
[276] Nam, ubi malos præmia sequuntur, haud facile quisquam
gratuito bonus est. Sall. Orat. Philip. contra Lapid. p. 145.
[277] Pauci potentes, quorum in gratia plerique concesserant,
sub honesto patrum, aut plebis nomine dominationes affectabant,
bonique et mali cives appellati, non ob merita in rempublicam
(omnibus pariter corruptis) sed uti quisque locupletissimus et
injuria validior, quia præsentia defendebat, pro bono
ducebatur. Frag. p. 139.
[278] Iidem illi factiosi regunt, dant, adimunt quæ lubet;
innocentes circumveniunt: suos ad honorem extollunt. Non
facinus, non probrum, aut flagitium obstat, quo minus
magistratus expetant: quod commodum est, trahunt, rapiunt:
postremo tamquam urbe capta, lubidine ac licentia sua pro
legibus utuntur. Sall. Or. 2. ad Cæsar. p. 196.
[279] Divitiis, quas honeste habere licebat, per turpitudinem
abuti properabant. Lubido stupri, ganeæ, cæterique cultus non
minor incesserat.... Vescendi causa, terra mariq; omnia
exquirere; dormire priusquam somni cupido esset: non famam, aut
sitim, neq; frigus, neq; lassitudinem operiri; sed ea omnia
luxu ante capere. Hæc juventutem, ubi familiares opes
defecerant, ad facinora incedebant. Animus imbutus malis
artibus haud facile lubidinibus carebat: eo profusius omnibus
modis quæstui atque sumtui deditus erat. Sall. de Bell. Cat. p.
9.
[280] Ubi divitiæ claræ habentur, ibi omnia bona vilia sunt,
fides, probitas, pudor, pudicitia. Sall. Orat. 2. ad Cæs. p.
199.
[281] Itaque omnes concessere jam in paucorum dominationem, qui
per militare nomen, ærarium, exercitum, regnum, provincias
occupavere, et arcem habent ex spoliis vestris: cum interim
more pecudum vos multitudo singulis habendos, fruendosque
præbetis, exsuti omnibus, quæ majores reliquere: nisi quia
vosmet ipsi per suffragia, uti præsides olim, nunc dominos
destinatis. Salt. Frag. Orat. Lepid. ad Pleb. p. 160.
[282] Διαφθειρομένου δὲ τοῦ δήμου ταῖς δωροδοκίαις ὑπὸ τῶν
φιλαρχούντων, καὶ χρωμένων τῷ δεκάζεσθαι καθάπερ ἐργασίᾳ
συνήθει τῶν πολλῶν, βουλόμενος ἐκκόψαι παντάπασι τὸ νόσημα
τοῦτο τῆς πόλεως, ἔπεισε δόγμα θέσθαι τὴν σύγκλητον, ὅπως οἱ
κατασταθέντες ἄρχοντες, εἰ μηδένα κατήγορον ἔχοιεν, αὐτοὶ
παριόντες ἐξ ἀνάγκης εἰς ἔνορκον δικαστήριον εὐθύνας διδῶσιν.
Plut. in Vit. Cat. p. 126.
[283] Ἕωθεν οὖν ἐπὶ τὸ βῆμα τοῦ Κάτωνος, προελθόντος, ἀθρόοι
προσπεσόντες ἐβόων, ἐβλασφήμουν, ἔβαλλον. Plut. ibid.
[284]
Hinc rapti fasces pretio: sectorque favoris
Ipse sui populus: lethalisque ambitus urbi
Annua venali referens certamina campo.
Lucan. Pharsal. lib. 1. Edit. 1506.
[285] Mala sua, quod malorum ultimum est, amant ... et definit
esse remedio locus, ubi quæ fuerant vitia, mores sunt. Senec.
Ep. 39. p. 100.
[286] In tanta tamque corrupta civitate, Catilina omnium
flagitiosorum, atque facinorosorum circum se, tamquam
stipatorum catervas habebat. Sall. de Bell. Cat. p. 9.
[287] Καίσαρος]——τὰ νοσοῦντα καὶ διεφθαρμένα τῆς πολιτείας μέρη
ταράττοντος καὶ συνάγοντος πρὸς αὑτὸν. Plut. in Vit. Cat. Min.
p. 241.
[288] Peculatus ærarii, et per vim sociis ereptæ pecuniæ, quæ
quamquam gravia sunt, tamen consuetudine jam pro nihilo
habentur. Sall. de Bell. Jug. p. 73.
[289] Adeo juventus luxu atque avaritia corrupta est, uti
merito dicatur, genitos esse, qui neque ipsi habere possent res
familiares, neque alios pati. Sall. Frag. pag. 139.
[290] Popilius to Antiochus Epiph. Livy. lib. 45. p. 672.
[291] Juv. Sat. 4.
[292]
... Ex quo suffragia nulli
Vendimus, effugit Curas. Nam qui dabat olim
Imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se
Continet, atque duas tantum res anxius optat
Panem et Circenses.
Juv. Sat. 10. lin. 77.
Otium cum servitio.
Sall. Frag. p. 341.
[293] Ludi Scenici.
[294] Histriones.
[295] Etenim cum artifex ejusmodi sit; ut solus dignus videatur
esse, qui in scena spectetur: tum vir ejusmodi est, ut solus
dignus videatur, qui eo non accedat. Orat. pro Rosc. Edit.
Glasg. p. 43.
[296] Divus Augustus immunes verberum histriones quondam
responderat. Tacit. c. 14. p. 42. Edit. Glasg.
Coercitionem in histriones magistratibus in omni tempore et
loco lege vetere permissam ademit. Suet. in Vit. Aug. p. 163.
[297] Histrionum licentiam adeo compescuit, ut Stephanionem
Togatorium, cui in puerilem habitum circumtonsam matronam
ministrasse compererat, per tria theatra virgis cœsum
relegaverit. Hylam pantomimum querente prætore, in atrio domus
suæ, nemine excluso, flagellis verberaverit: et Hyladem urbe
atque Italia submoverit, quod spectatorem a quo exsibilabatur,
demonstrasset digito, conspicuumque fecisset. Ibid.
[298] Ostendam nobilissimos juvenes mancipia pantomimorum.
Senec. Epist. 47. p. 118.
[299] Variis dehinc et sæpius irritis prætorum questibus,
postremo Cæsar de immodestia histrionum retulit; multa ab iis
in publicum seditiose, fœda per domos tentari ... eo
flagitiorum et virium venisse, ut auctoritate patrum coercendum
sit. Pulsi tum histriones Italia. Tacit. Annal. 4. p. 134.
[300] Cæde in theatro per discordiam admissa, capita factionum
et histriones propter quos dissidebatur, relegavit: nec ut
revocaret unquam ullis populi precibus potuit evinci. Suet. in
Tib. c. 37.
[301] Συμφέρει σοὶ, Καῖσαρ, περὶ ἡμᾶς τὸν δῆμον
ἀποδιατρίβεσθαι. Dion. Cass. lib. 54. p. 533.
[302]
Verum equitis quoque jam migravit ab aure voluptas
Omnis, ad incertos oculos, et gaudia vana.
Hor. epist. 1. lib. 2. lin. 187.
Tanto cum strepitu ludi spectantur, et artes,
Divitiæque peregrinæ: quibus oblitus actor
Quum stetit in scena, concurrit dextera lævæ:
Dixit adhuc aliquid? nil sane. Quid placet ergo?
Lana Tarentino violas imitata veneno.
Ibid. lin. 203.