: are sufficient and it may be worth the reader's time to reflect a little on the merits of the cause, as well as of the men, who had been thus dealt with by their country. I shall direct him no farther than by repeating, that Aristides was the most renowned by the people themselves for his exact justice and knowledge in the law; that Themistocles + was a most fortunate admiral, and had got a mighty victory over the great King of Persia's fleet; that Pericles + was an able minister of state, an excellent orator, and a man of letters; and lastly, that Phocion, § beside the success of his arms, was also renowned for his negotiations abroad; having in an embassy brought the greatest monarch of the world at that time to the terms of an honourable peace, by which his country was preserved. I shall conclude my remarks upon Athens with the character given us of that people by Polybius. About this time, says he, the Athenians were governed by two men, quite sunk in their affairs; had little or no commerce with the rest of Greece, and were become great reverencers of crowned heads. For, from the time of Alexander's captains, till Greece was subdued by the Romans, to the latter part of which this description of Polybius falls in, Athens never produced one famous man either for counsels or arms, or hardly for learning. And, indeed, it was a dark insipid period through all Greece: for, except the Achaian league under Aratus and Philopomen; and the endeavours of Agis and Cleomenes to restore the state of Sparta, so frequently harassed by tyrannies occasioned * Somers. VOL. 111. Р + Orford. § Portland. by the popular practices of the ephori, there was very little worth recording. All which consequences may perhaps be justly imputed to this degeneracy of Athens. CHAP. III. OF THE DISSENSIONS BETWEEN THE PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS IN ROME, WITH THE CONSEQUENCES THEY HAD UPON THAT STATE. HAVING in the foregoing Chapter confined myself to the proceedings of the commons only, by the method of impeachments against particular persons, with the fatal effects they had upon the state of Athens; I shall now treat of the dissensions at Rome, between the people and the collective body of the patricians or nobles. It is a large subject, but I shall draw it into as narrow a compass as I can. As Greece, from the most ancient accounts we have of it, was divided into several kingdoms, so was most part of Italy* into several petty commonwealths. And as those kings in Greece are said to have been deposed by their people upon the score of their arbitrary proceedings; so, on the contrary, the commonwealths of Italy were all swallowed up, and concluded in the tyranny of the Roman emperors. However, the differences between those Grecian monarchies and Italian republics were not very great: for, by the account Ho mer gives us of those Grecian princes who came to the siege of Troy, as well as by several passages in the Odyssey, it is manifest, that the power of these princes in their several states was much of a size with that of the kings in Sparta, the archon at Athens, the suffetes at Carthage, and the consuls in Rome: so that a limited and divided power seems to have been the most ancient and inherent principle of both those people in matters of government. And such did that of Rome continue from the time of Romulus, though with some interruptions, to Julius Cæsar, when it ended in the tyranny of a single person. During which period (not many years longer than from the Norman conquest to our age) the commons were growing by degrees into power and property, gaining ground upon the patricians, as it were, inch by inch, till at last they quite overturned the balance, leaving all doors open to the prac tices of popular and ambitious men, who destroyed the wisest republic, and enslaved the noblest people that ever entered upon the stage of the world. By what steps and degrees this was brought to pass shall be the subject of my present inquiry. While Rome was governed by kings, the monarchy was altogether elective. Romulus himself, when he had built the city, was declared king by the universal consent of the people, and by augury, which was there understood for divine appointment. Among other divisions he made of the people, one was into patricians and plebeians: the former were like the Barons of England some time after the conquest; and the latter are also described to be almost exactly what our Commons were then. For they were dependents upon the patricians, whom they chose for their patrons and protectors, to answer for their appearance, and defend them in any process they also supplied their patrons with money in exchange for their protection. This custom of patronage, it seems, was very ancient, and long practised among the Greeks. Out of these patricians Romulus chose a hundred to be a senate, or grand council, for advice and assistance to him in the administration. The senate, therefore, originally consisted all of nobles, and were of themselves a standing council, the people being only convoked upon such occasions, as by this institution of Romulus fell into their cognizance: those were, to constitute magistrates, to give their votes for making laws, and to advise upon entering on a war. But the two former of these popular privileges were to be confirmed by authority of the senate; and the last was only permitted at the king's pleasure. This was the utmost extent of power pretended to by the commons in the time of Romulus; all the rest being divided between the king and the senate; the whole agreeing very nearly with the constitution of England for some centuries after the conquest. After a year's interregnum from the death of Romulus, the senate of their own authority chose a successor, and a stranger, merely upon the fame of his virtue, without asking the consent of the commons; which custom they likewise observed in the two following kings. But in the election of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king, we first hear mentioned, that it was done populi impetrata venia; which indeed was but very reasonable for a free people to expect; though I cannot remember, in my little reading, by what incidents they were brought to advance so great a step. However it were, this prince, in gratitude to the people, by whose consent he was chosen, elected a hundred senators out of the commons, whose number, with former additions, was now amounted to three hundred. The people having once discovered their own strength, did soon take occasion to exert it, and that by very great degrees.* For at this king's death, who was murdered by the sons of a former, being at a loss for a successor, Servius Tullius, a stranger, and of mean extraction, was chosen protector of the kingdom by the people, without the consent of the senate; at which the nobles being displeased, he wholly applied himself to gratify the commons, and was by them declared and confirmed no longer protector, but king. This prince first introduced the custom of giving freedom to servants, so as to become citizens of equal privileges with the rest, which very much contributed to increase the power of the people. Thus in a very few years the commons proceeded so far, as to wrest even the power of choosing a king entirely out of the hands of the nobles; which was so great a leap, and caused such a convulsion and struggle in the state, that the constitution could not bear it; but civil dissensions arose, which immediately were followed by the tyranny of a single person, as this was by the utter subversion of the regal government, and by a settlement upon a new foundation. For the nobles, spited at this indignity done them by the commons, firmly united in a body, deposed this prince by plain force, and chose Tar * Alluding to the great rebellion, and protectorship of Oliver Cromwell. |
