how it is a great source of disorder in a Commonwealth to pass a Law
opposed to ancient Usage and with stringent retrospective Effect._
It has been said by ancient writers that to be pinched by adversity or
pampered by prosperity is the common lot of men, and that in whichever
way they are acted upon the result is the same. For when no longer
urged to war on one another by necessity, they are urged by ambition,
which has such dominion in their hearts that it never leaves them to
whatsoever heights they climb. For nature has so ordered it that while
they desire everything, it is impossible for them to have everything,
and thus their desires being always in excess of their capacity to
gratify them, they remain constantly dissatisfied and discontented. And
hence the vicissitudes in human affairs. For some seeking to enlarge
their possessions, and some to keep what they have got, wars and
enmities ensue, from which result the ruin of one country and the
growth of another.
I am led to these reflections from observing that the commons of Rome
were not content to secure themselves against the nobles by the
creation of tribunes, a measure to which they were driven by necessity,
but after effecting this, forthwith entered upon an ambitious contest
with the nobles, seeking to share with them what all men most esteem,
namely, their honours and their wealth. Hence was bred that disorder
from which sprang the feuds relating to the Agrarian Laws, and which
led in the end to the downfall of the Roman republic. And although it
should be the object of every well-governed commonwealth to make the
State rich and keep individual citizens poor it must be allowed that in
the matter of this law the city of Rome was to blame; whether for
having passed it at first in such a shape as to require it to be
continually recast; or for having postponed it so long that its
retrospective effect was the occasion of tumult; or else, because,
although rightly framed at first, it had come in its operation to be
perverted. But in whatever way it happened, so it was, that this law
was never spoken of in Rome without the whole city being convulsed.
The law itself embraced two principal provisions. By one it was enacted
that no citizen should possess more than a fixed number of acres of
land; by the other that all lands taken from the enemy should be
distributed among the whole people. A twofold blow was thus aimed at
the nobles; since all who possessed more land than the law allowed, as
most of the nobles did, fell to be deprived of it; while by dividing
the lands of the enemy among the whole people, the road to wealth was
closed. These two grounds of offence being given to a powerful class,
to whom it appeared that by resisting the law they did a service to the
State, the whole city, as I have said, was thrown into an uproar on the
mere mention of its name. The nobles indeed sought to temporize, and to
prevail by patience and address; sometimes calling out the army,
sometimes opposing another tribune to the one who was promoting the
law, and sometimes coming to a compromise by sending a colony into the
lands which were to be divided; as was done in the case of the
territory of Antium, whither, on a dispute concerning the law having
arisen, settlers were sent from Rome, and the land made over to them.
In speaking of which colony Titus Livius makes the notable remark, that
hardly any one in Rome could be got to take part in it, so much readier
were the commons to indulge in covetous schemes at home, than to
realize them by leaving it.
The ill humour engendered by this contest continued to prevail until
the Romans began to carry their arms into the remoter parts of Italy
and to countries beyond its shores; after which it seemed for a time to
slumber—and this, because the lands held by the enemies of Rome, out of
sight of her citizens and too remote to be conveniently cultivated,
came to be less desired. Whereupon the Romans grew less eager to punish
their enemies by dividing their lands, and were content, when they
deprived any city of its territory, to send colonists to occupy it. For
causes such as these, the measure remained in abeyance down to the time
of the Gracchi; but being by them revived, finally overthrew the
liberty of Rome. For as it found the power of its adversaries doubled,
such a flame of hatred was kindled between commons and senate, that,
regardless of all civil restraints, they resorted to arms and
bloodshed. And as the public magistrates were powerless to provide a
remedy, each of the two factions having no longer any hopes from them,
resolved to do what it could for itself, and to set up a chief for its
own protection. On reaching this stage of tumult and disorder, the
commons lent their influence to Marius, making him four times consul;
whose authority, lasting thus long, and with very brief intervals,
became so firmly rooted that he was able to make himself consul other
three times. Against this scourge, the nobles, lacking other defence,
set themselves to favour Sylla, and placing him at the head of their
faction, entered on the civil wars; wherein, after much blood had been
spilt, and after many changes of fortune, they got the better of their
adversaries. But afterwards, in the time of Cæsar and Pompey, the
distemper broke out afresh; for Cæsar heading the Marian party, and
Pompey, that of Sylla, and war ensuing, the victory remained with
Cæsar, who was the first tyrant in Rome; after whose time that city was
never again free. Such, therefore, was the beginning and such the end
of the Agrarian Law.
But since it has elsewhere been said that the struggle between the
commons and senate of Rome preserved her liberties, as giving rise to
laws favourable to freedom, it might seem that the consequences of the
Agrarian Law are opposed to that view. I am not, however, led to alter
my opinion on this account; for I maintain that the ambition of the
great is so pernicious that unless controlled and counteracted in a
variety of ways, it will always reduce a city to speedy ruin. So that
if the controversy over the Agrarian Laws took three hundred years to
bring Rome to slavery, she would in all likelihood have been brought to
slavery in a far shorter time, had not the commons, by means of this
law, and by other demands, constantly restrained the ambition of the
nobles.
We may also learn from this contest how much more men value wealth than
honours; for in the matter of honours, the Roman nobles always gave way
to the commons without any extraordinary resistance; but when it came
to be a question of property, so stubborn were they in its defence,
that the commons to effect their ends had to resort to those irregular
methods which have been described above. Of which irregularities the
prime movers were the Gracchi, whose motives are more to be commended
than their measures; since to pass a law with stringent retrospective
effect, in order to remove an abuse of long standing in a republic, is
an unwise step, and one which, as I have already shown at length, can
have no other result than to accelerate the mischief to which the abuse
leads; whereas, if you temporize, either the abuse develops more
slowly, or else, in course of time, and before it comes to a head, dies
out of itself.