1832.] Cicero s Work on the Republic. 527 



Our readers will perceive that the point which Cicero is endeavouring 

 to establish, is that a state can and may exist under either of the simple 

 forms of government ; but that they are only tolerable, and that a mixed 

 kind, one compounded of all three, is infinitely to be preferred to either 

 of them, singly. 



* " In monarchies the people are too much excluded from a share in 

 the public laws and councils ; in the domination of an aristocracy they 

 can scarcely partake of liberty, being destitute of power, and prevented 

 from giving their advice on public measures ; and when every thing is 

 conducted by themselves, however just and well regulated they may be, 

 yet their equality becomes unjust, since it possesses no gradations of 

 honour. And although the renowned Persian, Cyrus, was the justest 

 and wisest of kings, yet the weal of the community (for that, according 

 to my former definition, constitutes a commonwealth) does not appear 

 to me to be the great object of solicitude when the state is governed by 

 the caprice of a single man. And though our allies, the inhabitants of 

 Massilia,t are governed with the strictest justice by an aristocracy of 

 illustrious citizens, yet there is some appearance of servitude in that ex- 

 clusion of the people from power. And though the Athenians, at certain 

 periods in their history, performed every thing by the orders and decrees 

 of the people, in consequence of the abolition of the Areopagus, yet the 

 state lost its splendour by the want of distinct gradations in power. 



" My present observations relate to those three kinds of government 

 when unmingled and unintermixed, and each preserving its own peculiar 

 qualities. Besides those effects which I have just enumerated, there are 

 others which are the causes of certain ruin ; since there is none of these 

 commonwealths without a slippery road leading down to some neigh- 

 bouring evil. For after contemplating that tolerable king, to use the 

 most appropriate epithet/or that king worthy of love (if you are desirous 

 that I should give him that appellation) I mean Cyrus, I next perceive 

 Phalaris, J an odious monster ; to a resemblance of whose iniquities the 

 domination of a single individual will rapidly descend by a facile and 

 easy course. The aristocracy of illustrious citizens at Massilia borders 

 upon that oligarchy of the tyrannical thirty, which was once established 

 at Athens. And the very people of Athens, not to seek for other ex- 

 amples, having obtained the sovereign power, conducted every thing by 

 democratical fury. 



" I am therefore inclined to think that we ought to give our warmest 

 approbation to a fourth kind of government, which is formed by the 

 mixture and union of the three others which I have just mentioned." 



The reader will have been able to form, from the above extracts, some 

 idea of the clear, but at the same time profound, line of argumentation 

 which runs through this admirable and long lost treatise. There are 

 few compositions in existence which combine so many sources of interest. 

 As a relic of ancient wisdom, it serves to complete a precious chain, 



* Book I. ch. 27, 28, 29. 



f- The modern Marseilles, in the South of France. It was one of the earliest 

 Greek colonies ; and was founded by the Phocaeans. See Justin XLIII 3. Its 

 government was a complete aristocracy. See Strabo, Book V. 



; Phalaris was the tyrant of Agrigentum. He has obtained an infamous renown 

 for his cruelty. Cicero has instanced him in juxta-position with Cyrus, who was 

 considered the model of a virtuous king, to shew that kings reigning uncontrolled 

 may be as just as Cyrus or as tyrannical as Phalaris. 



