appeals in all Some writers

magistrates, declare war*, and to receive cases, both from the king and the senate. have denied this right of an appeal to the people: but Cicero expressly mentions it among the regal constitutions, as old as the foundation of the city; which he had demonstrated more at large in his treatise on the Republic; whence Seneca has quoted a passage in confirmation of it; and intimates, that the same right was declared likewise in the pontifical books. Valerius Maximus gives us an instance of it, which is confirmed also by Livy, that Horatius, being condemned to die by King Tullus, for killing his sister, was acquitted upon his appeal to the people §.

This was the original constitution of Rome, even under their kings: for, in the foundation of a state, where there was no force to compel, it was necessary to invite men into it, by all proper encouragements; and none could be so effectual, as the assurance of liberty, and the privilege of making their own laws. But the kings, by gradual encroachments, having usurped the whole administration to themselves, and, by the violence of their government, being grown intolerable to a city, trained to liberty and arms, were finally expelled by a general insurrection of the senate and the people. This was the ground of that invincible fierceness, and love of their country, in the old Romans, by which they conquered the world: for the su

*Dion. Hal. 1. 1. 87.

✈ Nam cum a primo Urbis ortu, regiis institutis, partim etiam legibus, anspicia, cæremoniæ, comitia, provocationes-divinitus essent instituta. Tusc. Quæst. 4. 1.

‡ Cum Ciceronis libros de Repub. prehendit-notat, Provocationem ad populum etiam a regibus fuisse. Id ita in Pontificalibus libris aliqui putant & Fenestella.-Senec. Ep. 108.

§ M. Horatius interfectæ sororis crimine a Tullo Rege damnatus, ad populum provocato judicio absolutus est. Val. Max. 1. 8. 1. vid. Liv. 1. 26.

Romulus seems to have borrowed the plan of his new state from the old government of Athens, as it was instituted by Theseus; who prevailed with the dispersed tribes and families of Attica to form themselves into one city, and live within the same walls, under a free and popular government; distributing its rights and honors promiscuously to them all; and reserving no other prerogative to himself, but to be their captain in war, and the guardian of their laws, &c. vid. Plut. in Theseo. p. xi.

periority of their civil rights naturally inspired a superior virtue and courage to defend them; and made them, of course, the bravest, as long as they continued the freest,

of all nations.

By this revolution of the government, their old constitution was not so much changed, as restored to its primitive state: for though the name of king was abolished, yet the power was retained; with this only difference, that instead of a single person chosen for life, there were two chosen annually, whom they called consuls: invested with all the prerogatives and ensigns of royalty, and presiding in the same manner in all the affairs of the Republic*: when, to convince the citizens that nothing was sought by the change, but to secure their common liberty; and to establish their sovereignty again on a more solid basis; one of the first consuls, P. Valerius Poplicola, confirmed, by a new law, their fundamental right of an appeal to them in all cases; and, by a second law, made it capital for any man, to exercise a magistracy in Rome, without their special appointment†: and as a public acknowledgment of their supreme authority, the same consul never appeared in any assembly of the people, without bowing his fasces or maces to them; which was afterwards the constant practice of all succeeding consuls. Thus the Republic reaped all the benefit of a kingly government, without the danger of it; since the consuls, whose reign was but annual and accountable, could have no opportunity of invading its liberty, and erecting themselves into tyrants.

By the expulsion of the kings, the city was divided into two great parties, the aristocratical and the popular; or the senate and the plebeians §; naturally jealous of each

* Sed quoniam regale civitatis genus, probatum quondam, non tam regni, quam regis vitiis repudiatum est; nomeu tamen videbitur regis repudiatum, res manebit, si unus omnibus reliquis Magistratibus imperabit. De Leg. 3.7. + Dion. Hal. 1. 5. 292.

Vocato ad concilium populo, summissis fascibus in concionem ascendit. Liv. 2.7.

§ Duo genera semper in hac civitate fuerunt,-ex quibus alteri se populares, alteri optimates & haberi & esse voluerunt. Qui ea, quæ faciebant, quæque dicebant, jucunda multitudini esse volebant, populares; qui autem

other's power, and desirous to extend their own: but the nobles or patricians, of whom the senate was composed, were the most immediate gainers by the change, and, with the consuls at their head, being now the first movers and administrators of all the deliberations of the state, had a great advantage over the people; and within the compass of sixteen years, became so insolent and oppressive, as to drive the body of the plebeians to that secession into the sacred mount, whence they would not consent to return, till they had extorted a right of creating a new order of magistrates, of their own body, called tribunes, invested with full powers to protect them from all injuries, and whose persons were to be sacred and inviolable*.

The plebeian party had now got a head exactly suited to their purpose; subject to no control; whose business it was to fight their battles with the nobility; to watch over the liberties of the citizens; and to distinguish themselves in their annual office, by a zeal for the popular interest, in opposition to the aristocratical: who, from their first number, five, being increased afterwards to ten, uever left teazing the senate with fresh demands, till they had laid open to the plebeian families a promiscuous right to all the magistracies of the Republic, and by that means a free admission into the senate.

Thus far they were certainly in the right, and acted like true patriots; and, after many sharp contests, had now brought the government of Rome to its perfect state, when its honors were no longer confined to particular families, but proposed equally and indifferently to every citizen; who, by his virtue and services, either in war, or peace, could recommend himself to the notice and favor of his countrymen while the true balance and temperament of power between the senate and people, which was generally observed in regular times, and which the honest wished to establish in all times, was, that the senate should

ita se gerebant, ut sua consilia optimo cuique probarent optimates habebantur. Pro Sext. 45.

be the authors and advisers of all the public counsels, but the people give them their sanction and legal force.

The tribunes, however, would not stop here; nor were content with securing the rights of the commons, without destroying those of the senate; and as oft as they were disappointed in their private views, and obstructed in the course of their ambition, used to recur always to the populace; whom they could easily inflame to what degree they thought fit, by the proposal of factious laws for dividing the public lands to the poorer citizens; or by the free distribution of corn; or the abolition of all debts; which are all contrary to the quiet, and discipline, and public faith of societies. This abuse of the tribunician power was carried to its greatest height by the two Gracchi, who left nothing unattempted, that could mortify the senate, or gratify the people*; till, by their agrarian laws, and other seditious acts, which were greedily received by the city, they had in great measure overturned the equilibrium of power in the Republic, on which its peace and prosperity depended.

But the violent deaths of these two tribunes, and of their principal adherents, put an end to their sedition, and was the first civil blood that was spilt in the streets of Rome, in any of their public dissensions; which, till this time, had always been composed by the methods of patience and mutual concessions. It must secm strange to observe how these two illustrious brothers, who, of all men, were the dearest to the Roman people, yet, upon the first resort to arms, were severally deserted by the multitude, in the very height of their authority, and suffered to be cruelly massacred, in the face of the whole city: which shews what little stress is to be laid on the assistance of the populace, when the dispute comes to blows; and that sedition, though it may often shake, yet will never destroy, a free state, while it continues unarmed, and unsupported by a military force.-But this vigorous conduct of the senate, though it seemed necessary to the

* Nihil immotum, nihil tranquillum, nihil quietum denique in eodem statu relinquebat, &c. Vell. Pat. 2. 6.

present quiet of the city, yet soon after proved fatal to it; as it taught all the ambitious, by a most sensible experiment, that there was no way of supporting an usurped authority, but by force: so that, from this time, as we shall find in the following story, all those who aspired to extraordinary powers, and a dominion in the Republic, seldom troubled themselves with what the senate or people were voting at Rome, but came, attended by armies, to enforce their pretensions, which were always decided by the longest sword.

The popularity of the Gracchi was grounded on the real affections of the people, gained by many extraordinary privileges, and substantial benefits conferred upon them: but when force was found necessary to control the authority of the senate, and to support that interest, which was falsely called popular, instead of courting the multitude, by real services and beneficial laws, it was found a much. shorter way to corrupt them by money; a method wholly unknown in the times of the Gracchi; by which the men of power had always a number of mercenaries at their devotion, ready to fill the forum at any warning; who, by clamor and violence, carried all before them in the public assemblies, and came prepared to ratify whatever was proposed to them*: this kept up the form of a legal proceeding; while, by the terror of arins, and a superior force, the great could easily support, and carry into execution, whatever votes they had once procured in their favor by faction and bribery.

After the death of the younger Gracchus, the senate was perpetually laboring to rescind, or to moderate the laws, that he had enacted to their prejudice; especially one that affected them the most sensibly, by taking from them the right of judicature; which they had exercised from

* Itaque homines seditiosi ac turbulenti---conductas habent conciones. Neque id agunt, ut ea dicant & ferant, quæ illi velint audire, qui in concione sunt: sed pretio ac mercede perficiunt, ut, quicquid dicant, id i!li velle audire videantur. Num vos existimatis, Gracchos, aut Saturninum, aut quenquam illorum veterum, qui populares habebantur, ullum unquam in concione habuisse conductum? Nemo habuit. Pro Sext. 49.