judgment of his peers, whether burghers or commons, and on their deciding in his favour. CHAP. missioners Greece. But with regard to the Terentilian law itself, the Three comtribunes could make no progress. The burghers ab- are sent to solutely refused to allow the commons any share in the proposed revision of the constitution; but they consented to send three persons beyond the sea 52 into Greece, to collect such notices of the laws and constitutions of the Greek states as might be serviceable to the Romans. These commissioners were absent for a whole year: and in this year the pesti- A.U.C. 301. lence 53 again broke out at Rome, and carried off so many of the citizens, amongst the rest, four out of the ten tribunes, that there was a necessary cessation of political disputes. And as the pestilence spread also amongst the neighbouring nations 54, they were in no condition to take advantage of the distressed state of the Romans. A.C. 451. A.C. 450. solved to men to laws and In the next year the pestilence" left Rome free; A.U.C. 302. and on the return of the commissioners from Greece, It is rethe disputes again began. After a long contention, appoint ten the commons conceded the great point at issue; and revise the it was agreed that the revision of the laws and con- constitution. stitution should be committed to a body of ten men, all of the order of the burghers, who should supersede all other patrician magistrates, and each administer the government day by day in succession, as during an interregnum. Two of these were the A.U.C. 303. 52 Livy, III. 31. 53 Livy, III. 32. 54 Dionysius, X. 53. 32. 55 Dionysius, X. 54. Livy, III. A.C. 449. XIII. CHAP. consuls of the new year, who had been just elected, Appius Claudius and T. Genucius; the warden of the city and the two quæstores parricidii, as Niebuhr thinks, were three more; and the remaining five were chosen by the centuries 56. Conclusion of the about the law. Such was the end of a contest which had lasted struggle for ten years; and all its circumstances, as well as its Terentilian final issue, show the inherent strength of an aristocracy in possession of the government, and under what manifold disadvantages a popular party ordinarily contends against it. Nothing less than some extraordinary excitement can ever set on a level two parties so unequal; wealth, power, knowledge, leisure, organization, the influence of birth, of rank, and of benefits, the love of quiet, the dread of exertion and of personal sacrifices, the instinctive clinging to what is old and familiar, and the indifference to abstract principles so characteristic of common minds in every rank of life; all these causes render the triumph of a dominant aristocracy sure, unless some intolerable outrage, or some rare combination of favourable circumstances, exasperate or encourage the people to extraordinary efforts, and so give them a temporary superiority. Otherwise the aristocracy may yield what they will, and retain what they will; if they are really good and wise, and give freely all that justice and reason require, then the lasting greatness and happiness of a country are best secured; if they do much less than this, yielding something to the grow 56 Vol. II. p. 350. 2nd ed. XIII. ing light of truth, but not frankly and fully following CHAP. it, great good is still done, and great improvements effected; but in the evil which was retained there are nursed the seeds of destruction, which falls at last upon them and on their country. The irritation of having reasonable demands refused provokes men to require what is unreasonable; suspicion and jealousy are fostered beyond remedy; and these passions, outliving the causes which excited them, render at last even the most complete concessions thankless; and when experience has done its work with the aristocracy, and they are disposed to deal justly with their old adversaries, they are met in their turn with a spirit of insolence and injustice, and a fresh train of evils is the consequence. So true is it that nations, like individuals, have their time of trial; and if this be wasted or misused, their future course is inevitably evil; and the efforts of some few good and wise citizens, like the occasional struggles of conscience in the mind of a single man when he has sinned beyond repentance, are powerless to avert their judgment. CHAPTER XIV. THE FIRST DECEMVIRS, AND THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. "The laws of a nation form the most instructive portion of its history."-GIBBON, Chap. XLIV. CHAP. THE appointment of a commission invested with such Appoint decemvirs. XIV. extraordinary powers as those committed to the dement of the cemvirs, implies of itself a suspension of all such Suspension authorities as could in any degree impede or obstruct its operations. It was natural therefore that the tribunate' should be suspended as well as the patrician of all other magistracies. This is Dionysius' statement in the most express terms, (X. 56,) ad finem. Livy's language appears to me to admit of a doubt; for he says, when speaking of the wish of the commons to have decemvirs elected for another year," Jam plebs ne tribunicium quidem auxilium, cedentibus in vicem appellationi [codd. "appellatione"] decemviris quærebat," (III. 34, ad finem.) And although when mentioning the appointment of the first decemvirs, he had said, "Placet creari decemviros-et ne quis eo anno alius magistratus esset" (III. 32), yet it was sometimes made a question whether the tribuneship was properly called magistratus or no and at any rate it would not in these times be called "magistratus populi," but only "plebis:" further, Livy expressly adds that the "sacrata leges were not to be abolished. Niebuhr believes that the tribuneship was not given up till the second decemvirate. I think, on the whole, that Livy meant to agree with Dionysius; and the statement does not appear to me to possess any internal improbability. XIV. magistracies; besides, the appointment of the decem- CHAP. virs was even in its present form a triumph for the commons, and they would be glad to show their full confidence in the magistrates whom they had so much desired. Again, the tribunes had been needed to protect the commons against the tyranny of the consuls; but now that there were no consuls, why should there be tribunes? And who could dread oppression from men specially appointed to promote the interests of freedom and justice? Yet to show that the tribuneship was not to be permanently surrendered, the sacred laws were specially exempted from the decemvirs' power of revision, as was also that other law, scarcely less dear to the commons, or less important, which had secured to them the property of the Aventine. virs begin tion. With the ground thus clear before them, and pos- The decemsessing that full confidence and cheerful expectation their legisla of the people which is a government's great encouragement, the ten proceeded to their work. They had before them the unwritten laws and customs of their own country, and the information partly, we may suppose, in writing, which the commissioners had brought back from Greece. In this there would be much which to a Roman would require explanation; but the ten had with them an Ionian sophist", 2 Pomponius, de origine juris, § 4. in the Digest or Pandects, 1 Tit. ii. Strabo, XIV. 1. § 25, p. 642. Hermodorus was the friend of Heraclitus the philosopher, who reproached the Ephesians for having banished him from mere jealousy of his superior |