THE THREE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 



PROM THE UNTRANSLATED WORK OF CICERO ON THE REPUBUC. 



A mixed form of government is now so universally admitted to be 

 the best that human wisdom can devise, that it would be superfluous 

 to produce arguments in order to establish the proposition which 

 Cicero lays down and history confirms. The Roman government 

 was of that description ; and the most renowned nations of antiquity 

 were of the same form of state polity. Lycurgus* established it at 

 Sparta, where it lasted for many centuries ; and it was the means of 

 saving that state from the thraldom of a tyrant and the licentiousness 

 of a democracy, to which the other monarchies and republics of 

 Greece were continually exposed. According to Aristotle f and 

 Plutarch, J Solon, the legislator of Athens, placed the city of Minerva 

 under a mixed form of government ; though, as we all know, it 

 eventually merged into a pure democracy. The constitution of Car- 

 thage^ so well entitled to rank as one of the most eminent nations of 

 antiquity, the mother of Hannibal, the mistress of the ocean, and the 

 rival of Rome, was founded on the same principle. 



The advocates for the simple forms of government are now either 

 the paid advocates of an absolute monarchy, or the visionary enthu- 

 siasts of an equal democracy. And though there are some few ex- 

 ceptions to this general remark, the men who thought the most deeply 

 on politics in ancient and modern times, Aristotle and Cicero, Bacon 

 and Montesquieu, have agreed in considering a mixed form of govern- 

 ment the best adapted for securing the liberty and stability of a state. 



Liberty never has any domicile but in the state in which the sove- 

 reign power resides in the people, and certes nothing can be sweeter, 

 though if it be not equality, it ceases to be liberty. But how can 

 equality exist, I will not say in a monarchy where the slavery is 

 neither doubtful nor disguised, but how can it exist where the people 

 have merely the name of being free ? They give them votes, they 

 delegate their commands, they are solicited and canvassed by candi- 

 dates for the government, but these things must be given even if they 

 were not desirous so to do, and if they themselves did not possess 

 what they are solicited to bestow. For they are deprived of all civil 

 and military command, and of the rank of judges, advantages which 

 are obtained by the antiquity of and the influence of wealth. 

 * * * * # 



" According to these philosophers, when there have existed in a 

 state one or more individuals of surpassing opulence, privileges have 

 arisen through their pretensions and pride, and also in consequence of 

 the inactivity and weakness of the other citizens, and their suc- 

 cumbing to the arrogance of the rich. But let the people preserve 



See Polvlius, Book VI. 



t See Aristot. Polit. II. 72. 



$ Plutarch in Solon, xvii. 



See Servius to Virg. JEnead. iv. G82. 



j| See Book I. c. 31, 32, 33. 



