390 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



become subject to its military agents. From the earliest 

 times this liability has been exemplified and commented 

 upon ; and, familiar though it is, I must here illustrate and 

 emphasize it, because it directly bears on one of the cardinal 

 truths of political theory. Setting out with the Greeks, we 

 observe that the tyrants, by whom oligarchies were so 

 often overthrown, had armed forces at their disposal. Either 

 the tyrant was &quot; the executive magistrate, upon whom the 

 oligarchy themselves had devolved important administrative 

 powers ;&quot; or he was a demagogue, who pleaded the alleged 

 interests of the community, &quot;in order to surround&quot; himself 

 &quot; with armed defenders : &quot; soldiers being in either case the 

 agents of his usurpation. And then, in Koine, we see the like 

 done by the successful general. As Macchiavelli remarks 



&quot; For the further abroad they [the generals] carried their arms, the 

 more necessary such prolongations [of their commissions] appeared, and 

 the more common they became ; hence it arose, in the first place, that 

 but a few of their Citizens could be employed in the command of armies, 

 and consequently few were capable of acquiring any considerable degree 

 of experience or reputation ; and in the next, that when a Commander 

 in chief was continued for a long time in that post, he had an oppor 

 tunity of corrupting his army to such a degree that the Soldiers entirely 

 threw off their obedience to the Senate, and acknowledged no authority 

 but his. To this it was owing that Sylla and Marius found meana 

 to debauch their armies and make them fight against their country; 

 and that Julius Ccesar was enabled to make himself absolute in Rome. ;; 



The Italian Republics, again, furnish many illustrations. By 

 the beginning of the fourteenth century, those of Lombardy 

 &quot; all submitted themselves to the military power of some 

 nobles to whom they had entrusted the command of their 

 militias, and thus all lost their liberty.&quot; Later times and 

 nearer regions yield instances. At home, Cromwell showed 

 how the successful general tends to become autocrat. In the 

 Netherlands tin same thing was exemplified by the Van 

 Arteveldes, father and son, and again by Maurice of Nassau ; 

 and, but for form s sake, it would be needless to name the case 

 of Napoleon. It should be added that not only by command 

 of armed forces is the military chief enabled to seize on 



