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men amassed the wealth necessary to pay the venal crowds of the forum. 

 It was of no use, that a court of justice was established in Eome to 

 inquire into and punish these habitual acts of robbery. The chief 

 consequence was, that more extortion became necessary, to enable the 

 offenders to buy off the judges too. 



This state of things carried in itself the elements of its dissolution. 

 The examples of wealth, influence, and power, iniquitously obtained 

 at the expense of the community, through the machinery of the old 

 constitution could not fail to stimulate every successive generation of 

 nobles to ever increased ambition and recklessness. The greater the 

 ability of these men, the vaster became their influence — the more 

 threatening their position, the smaller became their number, until it 

 was reduced by degrees to three, to two, and at last to one. Monarchy 

 was thus the natural and inevitable result of the subjection of an 

 empire under the government of a city. 



That this change was not only natural and inevitable, but also salu- 

 tary to the interests of mankind, is proved by the ease, with which, 

 when once established, it was maintained. The only losers were the 

 ai'istocracy and the populace of Eome ; among them alone we find the 

 sources of discontent and the disposition to rebel. The provinces at 

 once felt the beneficial effect of monarchical government. Formerly 

 they had been governed only to be taxed. Now they were taxed to be 

 governed. No ^lilitary force therefore was necessary to keep them 

 in subjection ; the army was stationed along the frontiers to defend 

 the empire from the barbarians; and even in Italy and in Rome the 

 number of troops was wonderfully small in comparison with what we 

 arc accustomed to consider necessary to ensure the stability of most 

 governments. 



This fundamental change In the government of the Roman Emp're 

 was effected by Augustus without a corresponding change in the tra; 

 ditional forms and names. He preserved not only the old officers of 

 state with their old names, attributes, and functions, not only the 

 venerab'le institution of the senate, the real seat and centre of the life 

 of the republic, but even the popular assemblies, though they might 

 seem to contain an element hostile to his own sovereign power. The 

 task of Tiberius was thus much simplified and' facilitated. He had 

 merely to follow up the wise principles established by Augustus, and 

 he did so with much tact and firmness. Things were indeed, as yet, 

 fflr from having settled down into an established order and generally 

 acknowledged rule. There were still many alive, who remembered the 

 days, when liberty was the watchword of the aristocratic party. (Tac. 

 Ann;\l. i. 1.) Tiberius was still the first of his race, and bad not yet 



