and the work completed by two of his elective successors, Numa, and Tullius Hostilius. On the abolition of royalty, the Consular administration was substituted by Brutus, who stepped forward with a project for such a reform, which, he alleged, had been prepared by Tullius Hostilius, and to which his address obtained the assent and ratification of the Senate and People. This remark is applicable to Confederate Governments also. Amphictyon, we are told, was the author of that which bore his name. The Achæan league received its first birth from Achæus, and its second from Aratus.
What degree of agency these reputed lawgivers might have in their respective establishments, or how far they might be clothed with the legitimate authority of the People, cannot, in every instance, be ascertained. In some, however, the proceeding was strictly regular. Draco appears to have been intrusted by the People of Athens with indefinite powers to reform its Government and laws. And Solon, according to Plutarch, was in a manner compelled, by the universal suffrage of his fellow-citizens, to take upon him the sole and absolute power of new-modelling the Constitution. The proceedings under Lycurgus were less regular; but as far as the advocates for a regular reform could prevail, they all turned their eyes towards the single efforts of that celebrated patriot and sage, instead of seeking to bring about a revolution, by the intervention of a deliberative body of citizens.
Whence could it have proceeded, that a People, jealous as the Greeks were of their liberty, should so far abandon the rules of caution as to place their destiny in the hands of a single citizen? Whence could it have proceeded, that the Athenians, a People who would not suffer an army to be commanded by fewer than ten Generals, and who required no other proof of danger to their liberties than the illustrious merit of a fellow-citizen,
