Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks

s, 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

. 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

tion 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 t

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 rip

man 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

annot 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, g

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 co

ppy 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 so

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 m

a hundred min?.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 twen

he 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 t

est 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 curi?. This artful measure turned the scale, and transferred the majo

o 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, wi

publick. 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 sue

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,

at 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 wit

he 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

gate 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 futur

d, 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; expel

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 re

ight 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 inve

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 tribuni

cts 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 forum262 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 suppor

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

s 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 ene

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

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 C?sar, 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-cr

nny 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

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 u

and insolence of the players, takes notice of an ancient law, which empowered the pr?tors and ?diles to whip those players publickly, who gave the least offence, or did not perform to the satisfaction of the people. Though Augustus296 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 pr?tor 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

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

, 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 c