to engage in trade, and also at the same time made the old noble centuries accessible to plebeians, he was practically benefiting only the new financial nobility of the First Punic War period, and thus (entirely in spite of himself) he became the creator of high finance organized as an Estate — that is, that of the Equites, who a century later put an end to the great age of the nobility. Henceforth, when Hannibal (before whom Flaminius had fallen on the field of battle) had been disposed of, money steadily became, even for the government as such, the "ultima ratio" in the accomplishment of its policy — the last true State-policy that the Classical world was to know.
When the Scipios and their circle had ceased to be the governing influence, nothing remained but the private policies of individuals, who followed their own interests without scruple, and looked upon the "orbis terrarum" as passive booty. The historian Polybius (who belonged to that circle) regarded Flaminius as a mere demagogue and traced to him all the misfortunes of the Gracchan period. He was wholly in error as to Flaminius's intentions, but he was right as to his effect. Flaminius — like the elder Cato, who with the blind zeal of the agrarian overthrew the great Scipio on account of his world-policy — achieved the reverse of what he intended. Money stepped into the place of blood-leadership, and money took less than three generations to exterminate the yeomanry .
If it was an improbable piece of good luck in the destinies of the Classical peoples that Rome was the only city-state to survive the Revolution with an unimpaired constitution, it was, on the contrary, almost a miracle that in our West — with its genealogical forms deep-rooted in the idea of duration — violent revolution broke out at all, even in one place — namely, Paris. It was not the strength, but the weakness of French Absolutism which brought the English ideas, in combination with the power of money, to the point of an explosion which gave living form to the catchwords of the "Enlightenment," which bound together virtue and terror, freedom and despotism, and which echoed still even in the minor catastrophes of 1830 and 1848 and the more recent Socialistic longing for catastrophe.[1] In England itself, when the aristoc-
- ↑ And even in France, where the judicial class in the parlements openly scorned the Government, and with impunity tore down royal proclamations from the walls and put up their own arrêts instead (R. Holtzmann, Französ. Verfassungsgesch. (1910), p.353); where "orders were given, but not obeyed, laws enacted, but not executed" (A. Wahl, Vorgesch. d. franz. Revolution, I, 29 and passim); where high finance could overthrow Turgot and anyone else whose reform-schemes disquieted it; where the whole educated world, headed by princes and nobles, prelates and generals, was Anglomaniac and applauded opposition in any shape or form — even there nothing would have happened but for the sudden concurrence of a set of incidents — the fashion which set in amongst French officers of aiding the American republicans in their struggle with the English King; the diplomatic reverse in Holland (17 Oct. 1787) in the middle of the reforming activity of the Government; and the perpetual change of ministers under pressure from irresponsible quarters. In the British Empire, the falling-away of the Colonies was the result of attempts of high-Tory circles (in collusion with George III, but in reality of course in their own interests) to strengthen the Royal power. This party possessed in the Colonies a strong contingent of royalists, notably in the
