11.13. 13. 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 as to what family were the magistrates, provided the
magistracy preserved its authority.
An elective monarchy, like that of Rome, necessarily supposes 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 Tullius 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 in 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.
