harm to the Roman Republic: and that it is not those Powers which are
given by the free suffrages of the People, but those which ambitious
Citizens usurp for themselves, that are pernicious to a State._
Those citizens who first devised a dictatorship for Rome have been
blamed by certain writers, as though this had been the cause of the
tyranny afterwards established there. For these authors allege that the
first tyrant of Rome governed it with the title of Dictator, and that,
but for the existence of the office, Cæsar could never have cloaked his
usurpation under a constitutional name. He who first took up this
opinion had not well considered the matter, and his conclusion has been
accepted without good ground. For it was not the name nor office of
Dictator which brought Rome to servitude, but the influence which
certain of her citizens were able to assume from the prolongation of
their term of power; so that even had the name of Dictator been wanting
in Rome, some other had been found to serve their ends, since power may
readily give titles, but not titles power. We find, accordingly, that
while the dictatorship was conferred in conformity with public
ordinances, and not through personal influence, it was constantly
beneficial to the city. For it is the magistracies created and the
powers usurped in unconstitutional ways that hurt a republic, not those
which conform to ordinary rule; so that in Rome, through the whole
period of her history, we never find a dictator who acted otherwise
than well for the republic. For which there were the plainest reasons.
In the first place, to enable a citizen to work harm and to acquire
undue authority, many circumstances must be present which never can be
present in a State which is not corrupted. For such a citizen must be
exceedingly rich, and must have many retainers and partisans, whom he
cannot have where the laws are strictly observed, and who, if he had
them, would occasion so much alarm, that the free suffrage of the
people would seldom be in his favour. In the second place, the dictator
was not created for life, but for a fixed term, and only to meet the
emergency for which he was appointed. Power was indeed given him to
determine by himself what measures the exigency demanded; to do what he
had to do without consultation; and to punish without appeal. But he
had no authority to do anything to the prejudice of the State, as it
would have been to deprive the senate or the people of their
privileges, to subvert the ancient institutions of the city, or
introduce new. So that taking into account the brief time for which his
office lasted, its limited authority, and the circumstance that the
Roman people were still uncorrupted, it was impossible for him to
overstep the just limits of his power so as to injure the city; and in
fact we find that he was always useful to it.
And, in truth, among the institutions of Rome, this of the dictatorship
deserves our special admiration, and to be linked with the chief causes
of her greatness; for without some such safeguard a city can hardly
pass unharmed through extraordinary dangers. Because as the ordinary
institutions of a commonwealth work but slowly, no council and no
magistrate having authority to act in everything alone, but in most
matters one standing in need of the other, and time being required to
reconcile their differences, the remedies which they provide are most
dangerous when they have to be applied in cases which do not brook
delay. For which reason, every republic ought to have some resource of
this nature provided by its constitution; as we find that the Republic
of Venice, one of the best of those now existing, has in cases of
urgent danger reserved authority to a few of her citizens, if agreed
among themselves, to determine without further consultation what course
is to be followed. When a republic is not provided with some safeguard
such as this, either it must be ruined by observing constitutional
forms, or else, to save it, these must be broken through. But in a
republic nothing should be left to be effected by irregular methods,
because, although for the time the irregularity may be useful, the
example will nevertheless be pernicious, as giving rise to a practice
of violating the laws for good ends, under colour of which they may
afterwards be violated for ends which are not good. For which reason,
that can never become a perfect republic wherein every contingency has
not been foreseen and provided for by the laws, and the method of
dealing with it defined. To sum up, therefore, I say that those
republics which cannot in sudden emergencies resort either to a
dictator or to some similar authority, will, when the danger is
serious, always be undone.
We may note, moreover, how prudently the Romans, in introducing this
new office, contrived the conditions under which it was to be
exercised. For perceiving that the appointment of a dictator involved
something of humiliation for the consuls, who, from being the heads of
the State, were reduced to render obedience like every one else, and
anticipating that this might give offence, they determined that the
power to appoint should rest with the consuls, thinking that when the
occasion came when Rome should have need of this regal authority, they
would have the consuls acting willingly and feeling the less aggrieved
from the appointment being in their own hands. For those wounds or
other injuries which a man inflicts upon himself by choice, and of his
own free will, pain him far less than those inflicted by another.
Nevertheless, in the later days of the republic the Romans were wont to
entrust this power to a consul instead of to a dictator, using the
formula, _Videat_ CONSUL _ne quid respublica detrimenti capiat_.
But to return to the matter in hand, I say briefly, that when the
neighbours of Rome sought to crush her, they led her to take measures
not merely for her readier defence, but such as enabled her to attack
them with a stronger force, with better skill, and with an undivided
command.