CHAPTER V.

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.