S14.ON THE COMMONWEALTH.
-place in all cases imaginable; then secessions of the lower orders ensued; and lastly, those proceedings which tended to ‘place all powers in the hands of the populace.
Leelius.—1 must confess this is all too true.
All these things now, said Scipio, happened during periods of peace and tranquillity, for licence is wont to prevail when ‘there is little to fear, as in a calm voyage, or a trifling disease. But as we observe the voyager and the invalid implore the aid of some one competent director, as soon as the sea grows stormy and the disease alarming; so our nation in peace and security commands, threatens, resists, appeals from, and in- sults its magistrates, but in war obeys them as strictly as ‘Kings; for public safety is after all rather more valuable than popular licence. And in the most serious wars, our countrymen have even chosen the entire command to be deposited in the hands of some single chief, without a colleague; the very name of which magistrate indicates the absolute character of his power. For though he is evidently called dictator be- ‘cause he is appointed (dicitur), yet do we still observe him, ‘my Leelius, in our sacred books entitled (Magister Populi) the master of the people.
This is certainly the case, said Leelius. i Our ancestors, therefore, said Scipio, acted wisely. * * * XLI. When the people is deprived of a just king, as ‘Ennius says, after the death of one of the best of mon- ‘archs—, They hold his memory dear, and in the warmth _ Of their discourse, they cry—O Romulus!
O prince divine, sprung from the might of Mars To be thy country’s guardian! 0 our sire!
Be our protector still, O heaven-begot. ' Not heroes, nor lords alone, did they call those whom they lawfully obeyed; nor merely as kings did they proclaim them; but they pronounced them their country’s guardians, their fathers, and their gods. Nor indeed without cause, for they added— Thou, Prince, hast brought us to the gates of light.
And truly they believed that life and honour and: glory had arisen to them from the justice of their king. ‘The same good-will would doubtless have remained in their cepwidents, 1 Two pages are missing here.
ON THE COMMONWEALTH. 318 if the same virtues had been preserved on*the-throne, but, as ‘you see, by the injustice of one man the whole of that kind -of constitution fell into ruin.
I see it indeed, said Leelius, and I long to kde the bikery of these political revolutions both in. our own Common- wealth, and in every other.
XLII. And Seipio saidLWhen I shall have egphineds my opinion respecting the form: of. govertiment which I prefer, ‘I shall be able to speak to you more accurately respecting the revolutions of states, though I think that ‘such will not take place so easily in the mixed form of government which I ‘recommend. With respect, however, to absolute monarchy, ‘it presents an inherent and invincible tendency to revolution. No sooner does a king begin to be unjust, than this entire form of government is demolished, and he at once becomes -a tyrant, which is the worst of all eovernments, and one very ‘closely related to monarchy. If this state falls into the hands of the nobles, which is the usual course of events, it becomes an aristocracy, or the second of the three kinds of constitu- tions which I have described. For -it is, as it were, a royal, that is to say, a paternal council of the chief men of the. state consulting for the public benefit. Or if the people ‘by itself -has expelled or slain a tyrant, it is moderate in its conduct as ‘long as it has sense and wisdom, and while it rejoices in its exploit, and applies itself to maintaining the constitution. which it has established. But if ever the people has raised ‘its forces against a just king, and robbed him of his throne, or, as has frequently happened, has tasted the blood of its legitimate nobles, and subjected the whole commonwealth to its own licence, you can imagine no flood or conflagration so terrible, or any whose violence is harder to appease, than this unbridled insolence of the populace.
XLIII. Then we see realized that which Plato so vividly describes, if I can but express it in our language. It is by no means easy to do it justice in translation: however, I will try.. | - When, says Plato, the insatiate jaws of the populace - are fired with the thirst of liberty, and when the people, urged on ‘by evil ministers, drains in its thirst the cup, not of tempered liberty, but unmitigated licence; then the magistrates and chiefs, if they. are not utterly subservient and remiss, and 316 ON THE COMMONWEALTH.
shameless promoters of the popular licentiousness, are pur- sued, incriminated, accused, and cried down under the title oi despots and tyrants. I dare say you recollect the passage, Yes, said Leelius, it is familiar to me.
Scipio.— Plato thus proceeds: Then those who feel in duty bound to obey the chiefs of the state, are persecuted by the insensate populace, who call them voluntary slaves. But those who, though invested with magistracies, wish to be con- sidered on an equality with private individuals, and those pri- vate individuals who labour to abolish all distinctions between their own classand the magistrates, are extolled with acclama- tions and overwhelmed with honours, so that it inevitably happens in a commonwealth thus revolutionized, that liberal- ism abounds in all directions, due authority is found wanting even in private families, and misrule seems to extend even to the animals that witness it, Then the father fears the son, and the son neglects the father. All modesty is banished; they become far too liberal for that. No difference is made between the citizen and the alien; the master dreads and cajoles his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters. The young men assume the gravity of sages, and sages must stoop to the follies of children, lest they should be hated and oppressed by them, The very slaves even are under but little restraint; wives boast the same rights as their husbands; dogs, horses, and asses, are emancipated in this outrageous excess of freedom, and run about so violently that they frighten the passengers from the road. At length the termi- nation of all this infinite licentiousness is, that the minds of the citizens become so fastidious and effeminate, that when they observe even the slightest exertion of authority they grow angry and seditious, and thus the laws begin to be neglected, so that the people are absolutely without any master at all.
Then Lelius said—You have very accurately rendered the ‘Opinions which he expressed.
XLIV. Scipio.—Now to return to the argument of my dis- course, It appears that this extreme licence, which is the only liberty in the eyes of the vulgar, is, according to Plato, such that from it as a sort of root tyrants naturally arise and spring up. For as the excessive power of an aristocracy occasions the de- struction of the nobles, so this excessive liberalism of demo- cracies brings after it the slavery of the people. Thus we find ON THE COMMONWEALTH, 317 in the weather, the soil, and the animal constitution, the most favourable conditions are sometimes suddenly converted by their excess into the contrary, and this fact is especially observable in political governments; and this excessive liberty soon brings the people collectively and individually to au excessive servitude. For, as I said, this extreme liberty easily introduces the reign of tyranny, the severest of all un- just slaveries. In fact, from the midst of this unbridled aud capricious populace, they elect some one as a leader in oppo- sition to their afflicted and expelled nobles: some new chief, forsooth, audacious and impure, often insolently persecuting those who have deserved well of the state, and ready to oratify the populace at his neighbour’s expense as well as his own. ‘Then since the private condition is naturally exposed to fears and alarms, the people invest him with many powers, and these are continued in his hands. Such men, like Pisistratus of Athens, will soon find an excuse for surround- ing themselves with body-guards, and they will conclude by becoming tyrants over the very persons who raised them to dignity. If such despots perish by the vengeance of the better citizens, as is generally the case, the constitution is re-established. But if they fall by the hands of bold insur- gents, then the same faction succeeds them, which is only another species of tyranny. And the same revolution arises from the fair system of aristocracy, when any corruption has betrayed the nobles from the path of rectitude. Thus the power is like the ball, which is flung from hand to hand: it passes from kings to tyrants, from tyrants to the aristocracy, from them to democracy, and from these back again to tyrants and to factions; and thus the same kind of govern- ment is seldom long maintained.
XLV. Since these are the facts of experience, royalty is, In my opinion, very far preferable to the three other kinds of political constitutions. But it is itself inferior to that which is composed of an equal mixture of the three best forms of government, united and modified by one another, I wish to establish in a commonwealth a royal and preeminent chief. Another portion of power should be deposited in the hands of the aristocracy, and certain things should be reserved to the judgment and wish of the multitude. This constitution, in the first place, possesses that great equality, without which 318 ON THE COMMONWEALTH, men cannot long maintain their freedom;—secondly, it offers a great stability, while the particular separate and isolated forms easily fall into their contraries; so that a king is suc- ceeded by a despot,—an aristocracy by a faction,—a demo- cracy by a mob and confusion; aud all these forms are frequently sacrificed to new revolutions. In this united and mixed constitution, however, similar disasters cannot happen without the greatest. vices in public men. For there can be little to occasion revolution in a state, in which every person is firmly established in his appropriate rank, and there are but few modes of corruption into which we can fall.
XLVI. But I fear, Lelius, and you, my amiable and learned friends, that if I were to dwell any longer on this argument, my words would seem rather like the lessons of a master, and not like the free conversation of one who is uniting with you in the consideration of truth. I shall there- fore pass on to those things which are familiar to all, and which I have long studied. And in these matters I believe, I feel, and I affirm, that of all governments, there is none which, either in its entire constitution, or the distribution of its parts; or in the discipline of its manners, is comparable to that which our fathers received from our earliest ancestors, and which they have handed down to us. And since you wish to hear from me a development of this constitution, with which you are all acquainted, I shall endeavour to explain its true character and excellence. Thus keeping my eye fixed on the model of our Roman Commonwealth, I shall endeavour to accommodate to it all that I have to say on the best form of government, And by treating the subject in this way, I think I shall be able to accomplish most satisfactorily the task which Leelius has imposed on me.
XLVI. Lelius,—It is a task most properly and peculiarly your own, my Scipio; for who can speak so well as you either on the subject of the institutions of our ancestors, since you yourself are descended from most illustrious ances- tors, or on that of the best form of a constitution which, if we possess, (though at this moment we do not, still,) when we do possess such a thing, who will be more flourishing in it than you? or on that of providing counsels for the future, as you, who by dispelling two mighty perils from our city, have provided for its safety for ever? | |!
ON THE COMMONWEALTH. 319.
FRAGMENTS.
XLVIII. As our country is the source of the greatest’ benefits, and is a parent dearer than those who have given us life, we owe her still warmer gratitude than belongs to Gur human relations. * Nor would Carthage have continued to flowish ann pee centuries without wisdom and good institutions. * * In truth, says Cicero, although the reasonings of pert men may contain most abundant fountains of science and virtue; still, if we compare them with the achievements and complete actions of statesmen, they will seem not to have been of so much service in the actual business of men as of amusement for their leisure.
BOOK Il. INTRODUCTION BY THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATOR, In this second Book of his Commonwealth, Cicero gives us a spirited and eloquent review of the history and successive developments of the Roman constitution. He bestows the warmest praises on its ‘early kings—points out the great advantages which had resulted from its primitive monarchical system, and explains how that system had been graduaily broken up. In order to prove the importance of reviving it, he gives a glowing picture of the evils and disasters that had befallen the Roman state in consequence of that overcharge of democratic folly and violence, which had gradually gained an alarm- ing preponderance, and describes, with a kind of prophetic sagacity, _ the fruit of his political experience, the subsequent revolutions of the Roman state, which such a state of things would necessarily bring about.
I, [Wuen therefore he observed all his friends kindled with the de]sire of hearing him, Scipio thus opened the discussion. I will commence, said Scipio, with a sentiment of old Cato, whom, as you know, I singularly loved and exceedingly ad- mired, and to whom, in compliance with the judgment of 320 ON THE COMMONWEALTH.»
both my parents, and also by my own desire, I was entirely devoted during my youth; of whose discourse, indeed, I could never have enough; so much experience did he possess as a statesman respecting the republic which he had so long governed, both in peace and war, with so much success. There was also an admirable propriety in his style of conversation, in which wit was tempered with gravity; a wonderful apti-. tude for acquiring, and at the same time communicating information,—and_ his life was in perfect correspondence and unison with his language. He used to say that the govern- ment of Rome was superior to that of other states; for this reason, because in nearly all of them there had been single individuals, each of whom had regulated their commonwealth according to their own laws and their own ordinances.. So Minos had done in Crete, and Lycurgus in Sparta; and in Athens, which experienced so many revolutions, first: Theseus, then Draco, then Solon, then Clisthenes, afterwards many others; and lastly, when it was almost lifeless and quite prostrate, that great and wise man, Demetrius Phalereus, supported it. But our Roman constitution, on the contrary, did not spring from the genius of one individual, but from that of many; and it was established, not in the lifetime of one man, but in the course of several ages and centuries. For, added he, there never yet existed any genius so vast and comprehensive as to allow nothing at any time to escape its attention, and all the geniuses in the world united in @ single mind, could never, within the limits of a single life, exert a foresight sufficiently extensive to embrace and harmonize all, without the aid of experience and practice.
Thus, according to Cato’s usual habit, I now ascend in my discourse to the “ Origin of the People,” for I like to adopt the expression of Cato. I shall also more easily execute my proposed task, if I thus exhibit to you our political constitu- tion in its infancy, progress, and maturity, now so firm and fully established, than if, after the example of Socrates in the books of Plato, I were to delineate a mere imaginary republic.
II. When all had signified their approbation, Scipio re- sumed:—What commencement of a political constitution can we conceive more brilliant, or more universally known, than the foundation of Rome by the hand of Romulus? and he was ON THE COMMONWEALTH. 321 the son of Mars: for we may grant this much to the common report existing among men, especially as it is not merely ancient, but one also which has been wisely maintained by our ancestors, in order that those who have done great service to communities, may enjoy the reputation of having received from the gods, not only their genius, but their very birth.
It is related, then, that soon after the birth of Romulus and his brother Remus, Amulius, king of Alba, fearing that they might one day undermine his authority, ordered that they should be exposed on the banks of the Tiber; and that in this situation, the infant Romulus was suckled by a wild beast; that he was afterwards educated by the shepherds, and brought up in the rough way of living and labours of the countrymen; and that he acquired, when he grew up, such superiority over the rest by the vigour of his body and the courage of his soul, that all the people who at that time inhabited the plains in the midst of which Rome now stands, tranquilly and will- ingly submitted to his government. And when he had made himself the chief of those bands, to come from fables to facts, he took Alba Longa, a powerful and strong city at that time, and slew its king, Amulius.
_ III. Having acquired this glory, he conceived the design (as they tell us) of founding a new city and establishing a new state. As respected the site of his new city, a point which requires the greatest foresight in him who would lay the foundation of a durable commonwealth, he chose the most convenient possible position. For he did not advance too near the sea, which he might easily have done with the forces under his command, either by entering the territory of the Rutuli and Aborigines; or by founding his citadel at the mouth of the Tiber, where many years after Ancus Martius established a colony. But Romulus, with admirable genius and foresight, observed and perceived that sites very near the sea are not the most favourable positions for cities which would attain a durable prosperity and dominion. And this, first, because maritime cities are always exposed, not only to many attacks, but to perils they cannot provide against. For the continued land gives notice, by many indications, not only of any regular approaches, but also of any sudden surprises of an enemy, and announces them beforehand by the mere DE NAT. ETC. b 322 ON THE COMMONWEALTH.
sound. There is no adversary who, on an inland territory, ‘can arrive so swiftly as to prevent our knowing not only his existence, but his character too, and where he comes from. But a maritime and naval enemy can fall upon a town on the sea coast before any one suspects that he is about to come; and when he does come, nothing exterior indicates who he is, or whence he comes, or what he wishes; nor can it even be determined and distinguished on all occasions whether he is a friend or a foe.
IV. But maritime cities are likewise naturally exposed to corrupt influences, and revolutions of manners. Their civiliza- tion is more or less adulterated by new languages and customs, and they import not only foreign merchandise, but foreign fashions, to such a degree that nothing can continue un- alloyed in the national institutions. ‘Those who inhabit these maritime towns do not remain in their native place, but are urged afar from their homes by winged hope and specu- lation. And even when they do not desert their country in person, still their minds are always expatiating and voy- aging round the world.
“Neo or, indeed, was there any cause which more deeply undermined Corinth and Carthage, and at last overthrew them both, than this wandering and dispersion of their citizens, whom the passion of commerce and navigation had induced to abandon the cultivation of their lands and their attention to military pursuits.
The proximity of the sea likewise administers to maritime cities a multitude of pernicious incentives to luxury, which are either acquired by victory or imported by commerce; and the very agreeableness of their position nourishes many expensive and “deceitful gratifications of the passions. And what I have spoken of Corinth may be applied, for aught I know, without incorrectness to the whole of Greece. For the Peloponnesus itself is almost wholly on the sea coast; nor, beside the Phliasians, are there any whose lands do not touch the sea; and beyond the Peloponnesus, the Ainianes, the Dorians, and the Dolopes, are the only inland people. Why should I speak of the Grecian islands, which, girded by the waves, seem all afloat, as it were, together with the insti- tutions and manners of their cities? | And these things, I have before noticed, do not respect ancient Greece only; for which fi ON THE COMMONWEALTH. 323 of all those colonies, which have been led from Greece into Asia, Thracia, Italy, Sicily, and Africa, with the single excep- tion of Magnesia, is there that is not washed by the sea? Thus it seems as if a sort of Grecian coast had been annexed to territories of the barbarians. For among the barbarians themselves none were heretofore a maritime people, if. we except the Carthaginians and Etruscans; one for the sake of commerce, the other of pillage. And this is one evident reason of the calamities and revolutions of Greece, because she became infected with the vices which belong to maritime cities, which I just now briefly enumerated. But yet, not- withstanding these vices, they have one great advantage, and one which is of universal application, namely, that there is a ereat facility for new inhabitants flocking to them. And again, that the inhabitants are enabled to export and send abroad the produce of their native lands to any nation they please, which offers them a market for their goods. | V. By what divine wisdom then could Romulus embrace all the benefits that could belong to maritime cities, and at the same time avoid the dangers to which they are exposed, except, as he did, by building his city on the bank of an inexhaustible river, whose equal current discharges itself into the sea by a vast mouth, so that the city could receive all it wanted from the sea, and discharge its superabundant commodities by the same channel? and, in the same river, a communication 1s found by which it not only receives from the sea all the pro- ductions necessary to the conveniences and elegances of life, but those also which are brought from the inland districts. So that Romulus seems to me to have divined and anticipated that this city would one day become the centre and abode of | a powerful and opulent empire. For there is no other part of Italy in which a city could be situated so as to be able to maintain so wide a dominion with so much ease.
VI. As to the natural fortifications of Rome, who is so negligent and unobservant as not to have them depicted and deeply stamped on his memory? Such is the plan and direction of the walls, which, by the prudence of Romulus and his royal successors, are bounded on all sides by steep and rugged hills. And the only aperture between the Esquiline and Quirinal mountains is enclosed by a formidable rampart, and surrounded by an immense fosse. And as for our fortified ¥2 324 ON THE COMMONWEALTH.
citadel, it is so secured by a precipitous barrier and énclosure of rocks, that, even in that horrible attack and invasion of the Gauls, it remained impregnable and inviolable. More- over, the site which he selected had also an abundance of fountains, and was healthy, though it was in the midst of a pestilential region; for there are hills which at once create a current of fresh air, and fling an agreeable shade over the valleys.
VII. These things he effected with wonderful rapidity, and thus established the city, which, from his own name Romulus, he determined to call Rome. And in order to strengthen his new city, he conceived a design, singular enough, and even a little rude, yet worthy of a great man, and of a genius which discerned far away in futurity the means of strengthen- ing his power and his people. The young Sabine females of honourable birth, who had come to Rome, attracted by the public games and spectacles which Romulus then, for the first time, established as annual games in the circus, were suddenly carried off at the feast of Consus' by his orders, and were given in marriage to the men of the noblest families in Rome. And when, on this account, the Sabines had declared war against Rome, the issue of the battle being doubtful and un- decided, Romulus made an alliance with Tatius, king of the Sabines, at the intercession of the matrons themselves who had been carried off. By this compact, he admitted the Sabines into the city, gave them a participation in the reli- gious ceremonies, and divided his power with their king.
VIII. But after the death of Tatius, the entire govern- ment was again vested in the hands of Romulus, although, besides making Tatius his own partner, he had also elected some of the chiefs of the Sabines into the royal council, who on account of their affectionate regard for the people were called Patres, or Fathers. He also divided the people into three tribes, called after the name of Tatius, and his own name, and that of Lucumo, who had fallen as his ally in the Sabine war. And also into tnirty curie, designated by the names of those Sabine virgins, who, after being carried off at the festivals, generously offered themselves as the mediators of peace and coalition.
But though these orders were established in the life of.
1 A name of Neptune.
ON THE COMMONWEALTH. 325 Tatius, yet after his death, Romulus reigned with still greater power by the counsel and authority of the senate.
IX. In this respect, he approved and adopted the principle which Lycurgus but little before had applied to the govern- ment of Lacedemon; namely, that the monarchical authority, and the royal power, cperate best in the government of states, when to this supreme authority is joined the influence of the noblest of the citizens. | Therefore, thus supported and, as it were, propped up by this council or senate, Romulus conducted many wars with the neighbouring nations, in a most successful manner, and, while he refused to take any portion of the booty to his own. palace, he did not cease to enrich the citizens. He also cherished the greatest respect for that institution of hierar- chical and ecclesiastical ordinances, which we still retain to the great benefit of the commonwealth; for in the very com- mencement of his government he founded the city with reli- gious rites, and in the institution of all public establishments he was equally careful in attending to these sacred ceremonials, and associated with himself on these occasions priests that were selected from each of the tribes. He also enacted that the nobles should act as patrons and protectors to the inferior citizens, their natural clients and dependants, in their re- spective districts; a measure the utility of which I shall afterwards notice.—The judicial punishments were mostly fines of sheep and oxen; for the property of the people at that time consisted in their fields and cattle, and this cireum- stance has given rise to the expressions which still designate real and personal wealth. Thus the people were kept in order rather by mulctations than by bodily inflictions.
X. After Romulus had thus reigned thirty-seven years, and. established these two great supports of government, the hierarchy and the senate, having disappeared in a sudden eclipse of the sun, he was thought worthy of being added to the number of the Gods,—an honour which no mortal man ever was able to attain to but by a glorious preeminence of virtue.. And this circumstance was the more to be admired in the case of Romulus, because most of the great men that have been deified, were so exalted to celestial dignities by the people, in periods very little enlightened, when fiction whs easy, and ignorance went hand in hand with credulity. But 326 ON THE COMMONWEALTH: with. respect. to Romulus, we know that he lived less than six centuries ago, at a time when science and literature were already advanced, and had got rid of many of the ancient errors that had prevailed among less civilized peoples. For if, as we consider proved by the Grecian annals, Rome was founded in the seventh Olympiad, the life of Romulus was contemporary with that period in which Greece already abounded in poets and musicians,—an age when fables, except those concerning ancient matters, received little credit.
For, one hundred and eight years after the promulgation of the laws of Lycurgus, the first Olympiad was established, .which indeed, through a mistake of names, some authors have supposed constituted by Lycurgus likewise. And Homer himself, according to the best computation, lived about thirty years before the time of Lycurgus. We must conclude, therefore, that Homer flourished very many years before the date of Romulus. So that, as men had now become learned, and as the times themselves were not destitute of knowledge, there was not much room left for the success of mere fictions. Antiquity indeed has received fables that have at times been sufficiently improbable: but this epoch, which was already so cultivated, more rm Sosa — pacers was impossible, rejected’ * We may, therefore, perhaps sehalia some credit to this story of Romulus’s immortality, since human life was at that time experienced, cultivated, and instructed. And doubtless there was in him such energy of genius and virtue, that it is not altogether impossible to believe the report of Proculus Julius, the husbandman, of that glorification having befallen Romu- lus, which for many ages we have denied to less illustrious men. At all events, Proculus is reported to have stated in the council, at the instigation of the senators, who wished to free themselves from all suspicion of having been accessaries. to the death of Romulus, that he had seen him on that hill which is now called the Quirinal, and that he had commanded him to inform the people, that they should build him a temple on that same hill, and offer him ee under the name of Quirinus.
. XI. You see, therefore, that the genius of this par man : © about seven lines are lost here, and there is a great deal of corrup- tion and imperfection in the next few sentences.
ON THE COMMONWEALTH. 327 did not merely establish the constitution of a new people, and then leave them, as it were, crying in their cradle; but he still continued to superintend their education till they had arrived at an adult, and well nigh a mature age.
Then Leelius said—We now see, my Scipio, what you meant when you said that you would adopt a new method of discussing the science of government, different from any found in the writings of the Greeks. For that prime master of philosophy, whom none ever surpassed in eloquence, I mean Plato, chose an open plain on which to build an imaginary city after his own taste,—a city admirably conceived, as none can deny, but remote enough from the real life and manners of men. Others, without proposing to themselves any model or type of government whatever, have argued on the consti- tutions and forms of states. You, on the contrary, appear to be about to unite these two methods; for, as far as you have gone, you seem to prefer attributing to others your dis- coveries, rather than start new theories under your own name and authority, as Socrates has done in the writings of Plato. Thus, in speaking of the site of Rome, you refer to a syste- matic policy, to the acts of Romulus, which were many of them the result of necessity or chance; and you do not allow your discourse to run riot over many states, but you fix and concentrate it on our own commonwealth; pro- ceed, then, in the course you have adopted, for I see that you intend to examine our other kings, in your pursuit of a perfect republic as it were. | - XII. Therefore, said Scipio, when that senate of Romulus which was composed of the nobles, whom the king himself respected so highly that he designated them patres, or fathers, and their children patricians, attempted, after the death of Romulus, to conduct the government without a king, the people would not suffer it, but amid their regret for Romulus, desisted not from demanding a fresh monarch. The nobles then prudently resolved to establish an interregnum, a new political form, unknown to other nations. It was not with- out its use, however, since, during the interval which elapsed before the definitive nomination of the new king, the state was not left without a ruler, nor subjected too long to the same governor, nor exposed to the fear lest some one, in con- sequence of the prolonged enjoyment of power, should become 328 ON THE COMMONWEALTH.
more unwilling to lay it aside, or more powerful if he wished to secure it permanently for himself. At which time this new nation discovered a political provision which: had escaped the Spartan Lycurgus, who conceived that. the monarch ought not to be elective—if indeed it is true that this depended on Lycurgus—but that it was better for the Lacedemonians to acknowledge as their sovereign the next heir of the race of Hercules, whoever he might be: but our Romans, rude as they were, saw the importance of ap- pointing a king, not for his family, but for his virtue and experience.