that the balance had begun many years before to lean to the popular side. But this default was corrected, partly by the principle just mentioned, of never drawing blood in a tumult; partly by the warlike genius of the people, which in those ages was almost perpetually employed: and partly by their great commanders, who, by the credit they had in their armies, fell into the scales as a farther counterpoise to the growing power of the people. Besides, Polybius, who lived in the time of Scipio Africanus the younger, had the same apprehensions of the continual encroachments made by the commons; and being a person of as great abilities, and as much sagacity, as any of his age, from observing the corruptions, which, he says, had already entered into the Roman constitution, did very nearly foretel what would be the issue of them. His words are very remarkable, and with little addition may be rendered to this purpose. *"That those abuses and corruptions, which in time destroy a government, are sown along with the very seeds of it, and both grow up together; and that as rust eats away iron, and worms devour wood, and both are a sort of plagues born and bred along with the substance they destroy; so with every form and scheme of government that man can invent, some vice or corruption creeps in with the very institution, which grows up along with, and at last destroys it." The same author, † in another place, ventures so far as to guess at the particular fate which would attend the Roman government. He says, its ruin would arise from the popular tumults, which would introduce a dominatio plebis, or tyranny of the people; wherein it is certain he had reason, and therefore

might have adventured to pursue his conjectures so far, as to the consequences of a popular tyranny, which, as perpetual experience teaches, never fails to be followed by the arbitrary government of a single person.

About the middle of the fourth century from the building of Rome, it was declared lawful for nobles and plebeians to intermarry; which custom, among many other states, has proved the most effectual means to ruin the former, and raise the latter.

And now the greatest employments in the state, were, one after another, by laws forcibly enacted by the commons, made free to the people; the consulship itself, the office of censor, that of the quæstors or commissioners of the treasury, the office of prætor or chief-justice, the priesthood, and even. that of dictator: the senate, after long opposition, yielding, merely for present quiet, to the continual urging clamours of the commons, and of the tribunes their advocates. A law was likewise enacted, that the plebiscita, or a vote of the house of commons, should be of universal obligation; nay, in time the method of enacting laws was wholly inverted; for, whereas the senate used of old to confirm the plebiscita, the people did at last, as they pleased, confirm or disannul the senatus consulta. *

Appius Claudius brought in a custom of admitting to the senate the sons of freedmen, or of such who had once been slaves; by which, and succeeding alterations of the like nature, that great council degenerated into a most corrupt and factious body of men, divided against itself; and its authority became despised.

The century and half following, to the end of

the third Punic war by the destruction of Carthage, was a very busy period at Rome; the intervals between every war being so short, that the tribunes and people had hardly leisure or breath to engage in domestic dissensions: however, the little time they could spare, was generally employed the same way. So, Terentius Leo, a tribune, is recorded to have basely prostituted the privileges of a Roman citizen, in perfect spite to the nobles. So, the great African Scipio and his brother, after all their mighty services, were impeached by an ungrateful com

mons.

However, the warlike genius of the people, and continual employment they had for it, served to divert this humour from running into a head, till the age of the Gracchi.

a full

These persons, entering the scene in the time of peace, fell violently upon advancing the power of the people, by reducing into practice all those encroachments which they had been so many years gaining. There were at that time certain conquered lands to be divided, beside a great private estate left by a king; these, the tribunes, by procurement of the elder Gracchus, declared by their legislative authority, were not to be disposed of by the nobles, but by the commons only. The younger brother pursued the same design; and, besides, obtained a law, that all Italians should vote at elections, as well as the citizens of Rome: in short, the whole endeavours of them both perpetually turned upon retrenching the nobles' authority in all things, but especially in the matter of judicature. And though they both lost their lives in those pursuits, yet they traced out such ways, as were afterward followed by Marius, Sylla, Pompey and Cæsar, to the ruin of the Roman freedom and greatness.

For in the time of Marius, Saturninus, a tribune,

procured a law, that the senate should be bound by oath to agree to whatever the people would enact; and Marius himself, while he was in that office of 'tribune, is recorded to have with great industry used all endeavours for depressing the nobles, and raising the people, particularly for cramping the former in their power of judicature, which was their most ancient inherent right.

Sylla, by the same measures, became absolute ty. rant of Rome: he added three hundred commons to the senate, which perplexed the power of the whole order, and rendered it ineffectual; then flinging off the mask, he abolished the office of tribune, as being only a scaffold to tyranny, whereof he had no farther use.

As to Pompey and Cæsar, Plutarch tells us, that their union for pulling down the nobles (by their credit with the people) was the cause of the civil war, which ended in the tyranny of the latter; both of them in their consulships having used all endeavours and occasions for sinking the authority of the patricians, and giving way to all encroachments of the people, wherein they expected best to find their own account.

From this deduction of popular encroachments in Rome, the reader will easily judge, how much the balance was fallen upon that side. Indeed, by this time the very foundation was removed, and it was a moral impossibility that the republic could subsist any longer: for the commons having usurped the offices of state, and trampled on the senate, there was no government left but a dominatio plebis. Let us therefore examine how they proceeded in this conjuncture.

I think it is a universal truth, that the people are much more dexterous at pulling down and setting up, than at preserving what is fixed; and they are

not fonder of seizing more than their own, than they are of delivering it up again to the worst bidder, with their own into the bargain. For, although in their corrupt notions of divine worship, they are apt to multiply their gods; yet their earthly devotion is seldom paid to above one idol at a time, of their own creation, whose oar they pull with less murmuring, and much more skill, than when they share the lading, or even hold the helm.

The several provinces of the Roman empire were now governed by the great men of their state; those upon the frontiers, with powerful armies, either for conquest or defence. These governors, upon any designs of revenge or ambition, were sure to meet with a divided power at home, and therefore bent all their thoughts and applications to close in with the people, who were now by many degrees the stronger party. Two of the greatest spirits that Rome ever produced, happened to live at the same time, and to be engaged in the same pursuit; and this at a conjuncture the most dangerous for such a contest; these were Pompey and Cæsar, two stars of such a magnitude, that their conjunction was as likely to be fatal, as their opposition.

The tribunes and people, having now subdued all competitors, began the last game of a prevalent populace, which is that of choosing themselves a master; while the nobles foresaw, and used all endeavours left them to prevent it. The people at first made Pompey their admiral, with full power over all the Mediterranean, soon after captain-general of all the Roman forces, and governor of Asia. Pompey, on the other side, restored the office of tribune, which Sylla had put down; and in his consulship procured a law for examining into the miscarriages of men in office or command for twenty