CHAP. XIII.: General Reflections on the State of Rome after the Expulsion of its Kings.

IT is impossible to be tired of so agreeable a subject as ancient Rome: thus strangers, at present, leave the modern palaces of that celebrated capital to visit the ruins; and thus the eye, after recreating itself with the view of flowery meads, is pleased with the wild prospect of rocks and mountains.

The patrician families were at all times possessed of great privileges. These distinctions, which were considerable under the kings, became much more important after their expulsion. Hence arose the

jealousy of the plebeians, who wanted to reduce them. The contest struck at the constitution without weakening the government; for it was very indifferent of what family were the magistrates, provided the magistracy preserved its authority.

An elective monarchy, like that of Rome, necessarily supposeth a powerful aristocratic body to support it; without which it changes immediately into tyranny or into a popular state. But a popular state has no need of this distinction of families to maintain itself. To this it was owing that the patricians, who were a necessary part of the constitution under the regal government, became a superfluous branch under the consuls; the people could suppress them without hurting themselves, and change the constitution without corrupting it.

After Servius Tullus had reduced the patricians, it was natural that Rome should fall from the regal hands into those of the people. But the people had no occasion to be afraid of relapsing under a regal power by reducing the patricians.

A state may alter two different ways; either by the amendment, or by the corruption, of the constitution. If it has preserved its principles, and the constitution changes, this is owing to its amendment; if, upon changing the constitution, its principles are lost, this is because it has been corrupted.

The government of Rome, after the expulsion of the kings, should naturally have been a democracy. The people had already the legislative power in their hands; it was their unanimous consent that had expelled the Tarquins; and, if they had not continued steady to those principles, the Tarquins might easily have been restored. To pretend that their design in expelling them was to render themselves slaves to a few families, is quite absurd. The situation, therefore,

of things required that Rome should have formed a democracy, and yet this did not happen. There was a necessity that the power of the principal families should be tempered, and that the laws should have a bias to democracy.

The prosperity of states is frequently greater, in the insensible transition from one constitution to another, than in either of those constitutions. Then it is that all the springs of government are upon the stretch; that the citizens assert their claims; that friendships or enmities are formed amongst the jarring parties; and that there is a noble emulation between those who defend the ancient, and those who are strenuous in promoting the new, constitution.