8.14. 14. How the smallest Change of the Constitution is attended with
the Ruin of its Principles.
Aristotle mentions the city of Carthage as a well-regulated
republic. Polybius tells us
[26]
that there was this inconvenience at
Carthage in the second Punic war, that the senate had lost almost all
its authority. We are informed by Livy that when Hannibal returned to
Carthage he found that the magistrates and the principal citizens had
abused their power, and converted the public revenues to their private
emolument. The virtue, therefore, of the magistrates, and the authority
of the senate, both fell at the same time; and all was owing to the same
cause.
Every one knows the wonderful effects of the censorship among the
Romans. There was a time when it grew burdensome; but still it was
supported because there was more luxury than corruption. Claudius
[27]
weakened its authority, by which means the corruption became greater
than the luxury, and the censorship dwindled away of itself.
[28]
After various interruptions and resumptions, it was entirely laid aside, till
it became altogether useless, that is, till the reigns of Augustus and
Claudius.
Footnotes
[26]
About a hundred years after.
[27]
See Book xi, chap. 12.
[28]
See Dio, xxxviii, Cicero in Plutarch, Cicero to Atticus, iv. 10,
15. Asconius on Cicero, "De Divinatione."
