1 832.] Cicero's Work on the Republic. 525 



frequently re-visited it, and his friend Atticus, who resided there, sent 

 him every work of importance as soon as it was published. Among 

 these were doubtless many treatises on government ; but there 

 were two that had been long in existence, and that merited all the 

 admiration with which our author is known to have regarded them. It 

 is superfluous for us to say that we refer to Plato's Republic and Aris- 

 totle's Politics. The former shadowed forth the beau ideal of a perfect 

 republic, in which no wrong was committed, no crime perpetrated, and 

 where the citizens were as virtuous as gods. He adorned his subject 

 with the splendid imagery of a poet, and the fervent eloquence of an 

 orator ; yet his penetrating wisdom must have convinced him that he 

 was describing a thing desirable rather than possible. More, in his 

 Utopia, and Harrington in his Oceana, have each given their own 

 opinions on government through the medium of an imaginary republic 

 described after the manner of Plato. But the illustrious Stagyrite 

 pursued a totally different plan in his immortal treatise called the 

 Politics. For he gathered the various laws and customs of above two 

 hundred states ; and after a careful examination of all of them, esta- 

 blished his conclusions on the basis of experience. Montesquieu, in his 

 L' Esprit des Loix, incontestably one of the most erudite works of modern 

 times, evidently imitated the plan of Aristotle. 



But Cicero, in his work on the Republic, which forms the third in this 

 glorious triumvirate, has not adopted the plan of either of the Grecian 

 philosophers. His object was to prove that neither monarchy, aristo- 

 cracy, nor democracy, unmingled with any other, but existing in a pure 

 simple form, is excellent ; but that a mixed form of government, com- 

 posed of the three elements just mentioned, is by far the best, and the 

 only one capable of enduring through successive ages. To support this 

 theory, he instances the Roman government, as completely answering 

 his description ; and he exhibits the methods by which Rome obtained 

 her mighty power ; and how, from a few huts, scattered along the banks 

 of the Tiber, she rose to be the mightiest of cities, and the metropolis of 

 the conquered world.* " I think/' says he, " I am fully persuaded, and 

 I therefore deliberately affirm, that no state whatever can be compared, 

 either in its internal constitution, or its external appearance, or in its 

 strict and rigid discipline, with that which has been bequeathed to us 

 by our fathers. I will explain its nature and superiority over all others ; 

 and after developing its principles, I will make it my model, and every 

 thing which I say on the best form of government shall have a reference 

 to it." 



But some reader may pause to ask " what was Rome under a 

 mixed form of government? I thought it had been an aristocracy, or a 

 democracy.'' Cicero, however, tells us, that the consuls elected annu- 

 ally, answered to an elective monarchy, of which hef was a great advo- 

 cate j the senate of course represented the aristocracy ; and the people, as 

 their name imports, were the democracy. He was not singular in his 

 opinion in calling this division of power a mixed form of government. 

 Polybius, whose accuracy of research and philosophical genius have 

 always been admired, when writing on the same subject, says,J " The 

 three kinds of government were all found in the commonwealth 

 of Rome. And so even was the balance between them all, and so 



See Book I. eh. 46. f See Book II. ch. 12. $ See Polyb. Book VI. 



