The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 2/A Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions between the Nobles and the Commons in Athens and Rome/Chapter 3

by Jonathan Swift

CHAP. III

OF THE DISSENSIONS BETWEEN THE PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS IN ROME, WITH THE CONSEQUENCES THEY HAD UPON THAT STATE.

HAVING in the foregoing chapter confined myself to the proceedings of the commons only, by the method of impeachments against particular persons, with the fatal effects they had upon the state of Athens; I shall now treat of the dissensions at Rome, between the people and the collective body of the patricians or nobles. It is a large subject, but I shall draw it into as narrow a compass as I can.

As Greece, from the most ancient accounts we have of it, was divided into several kingdoms, so was most part of Italy^[1] into several petty commonwealths. And as those kings in Greece are said to have been deposed by their people upon the score of their arbitrary proceedings, so, on the contrary, the commonwealths of Italy were all swallowed up, and concluded in the tyranny of the Roman emperors. However, the differences between those Grecian monarchies, and Italian republicks, were not very great: for, by the account Homer gives us of those Grecian princes who came to the siege of Troy, as well as by several passages in the Odyssey, it is manifest, that the power of these princes in their several states was much of a size with that of the kings in Sparta; the archon at Athens, the suffetes at Carthage, and the consuls in Rome: so that a limited and divided power seems to have been the most ancient and inherent principle of both those people in matters of government. And such did that of Rome continue from the time of Romulus, though with some interruptions to Julius Cæsar, when it ended in the tyranny of a single person. During which period (not many years longer than from the Norman conquest to our age) the commons were growing by degrees into power and property, gaining ground upon the patricians, as it were, inch by inch, till at last they quite overturned the balance, leaving all doors open to the practices of popular and ambitious men, who destroyed the wisest republick, and enslaved the noblest people that ever entered upon the stage of the world. By what steps and degrees this was brought to pass, shall be the subject of my present inquiry.

While Rome was governed by kings, the monarchy was altogether elective. Romulus himself, when he had built the city, was declared king by the universal consent of the people, and by augury, which was there understood for divine appointment. Among other divisions he made of the people, one was into patricians and plebeians: the former were like the barons of England some time after the conquest; and the latter are also described to be almost exactly what our commons were then. For they were dependants upon the patricians, whom they chose for their patrons and protectors, to answer for their appearance, and defend them in any process: they also supplied their patrons with money in exchange exchange for their protection. This custom of patronage, it seems, was very ancient, and long practised among the Greeks.

Out of these patricians Romulus chose a hundred to be a senate, or grand council, for advice and assistance to him in the administration. The senate therefore originally consisted all of nobles, and were of themselves a standing council, the people being only convoked upon such occasions, as by this institution of Romulus fell into their cognizance: those were, to constitute magistrates, to give their votes for making laws, and to advise upon entering on a war. But the two former of these popular privileges were to be confirmed by authority of the senate; and the last was only permitted at the king's pleasure. This was the utmost extent of power pretended to by the commons in the time of Romulus; all the rest being divided between the king and the senate: the whole agreeing very nearly with the constitution of England for some centuries after the conquest.

After a year's interregnum from the death of Romulus, the senate of their own authority chose a successor, and a stranger, merely upon the fame of his virtue, without asking the consent of the commons; which custom they likewise observed in the two following kings. But in the election of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king, we first hear mentioned, that it was done populi impetratâ veniâ; which indeed was but very reasonable for a free people to expect; though I cannot remember, in my little reading, by what incidents they were brought to advance so great a step. However it were, this prince, in gratitude to the people, by whose consent he was chosen, elected a hundred senators out of the commons, whose number, with former additions, was now amounted to three hundred.

The people having once discovered their own strength, did soon take occasion to exert it, and that by very great degrees. For at this king's death, who was murdered by the sons of a former, being at a loss for a successor, Servius Tullius, a stranger, and of mean extraction, was chosen protector of the kingdom by the people, without the consent of the senate; at which the nobles being displeased, he wholly applied himself to gratify the commons, and was by them declared and confirmed no longer protector, but king.

This prince first introduced the custom of giving freedom to servants, so as to become citizens of equal privileges with the rest, which very much contributed to increase the power of the people.

Thus in a very few years the commons proceeded so far, as to wrest even the power of choosing a king entirely out of the hands of the nobles; which was so great a leap, and caused such a convulsion and struggle in the state, that the constitution could not bear it; but civil dissensions arose, which immediately were followed by the tyranny of a single person, as this was, by the utter subversion of the regal government, and by a settlement upon a new foundation. For, the nobles, spited at this indignity done them by the commons, firmly united in a body, deposed this prince by plain force, and chose Tarquin the Proud; who, running into all the forms and methods of tyranny, after a cruel reign, was expelled by a universal concurrence of nobles and people, whom the miseries of his reign had reconciled.

When the consular government began, the balance of power between the nobles and plebeians was fixed anew: the two first consuls were nominated by the nobles, and confirmed by the commons; and a law was enacted, That no person should bear any magistracy in Rome, injussu populi, that is, without consent of the commons.

In such turbulent times as these, many of the poorer citizens had contracted numerous debts, either to the richer sort among themselves, or to senators and other nobles: and the case of debtors in Rome for the first four centuries^[2], was, after the set time for payment, that they had no choice but either to pay or be the creditor's slave. In this juncture, the commons leave the city in mutiny and discontent, and will not return but upon condition to be acquitted of all their debts; and moreover, that certain magistrates be chosen yearly, whose business it shall be to defend the commons from injuries. These are called tribunes of the people, their persons are held sacred and inviolable, and the people bind themselves by oath never to abrogate the office. By these tribunes, in process of time, the people were grossly imposed on to serve the turns and occasions of revengeful or ambitious men, and to commit such exorbitances, as could not end but in the dissolution of the government.

These tribunes, a year or two after their institution, kindled great dissensions between the nobles and the commons on the account of Coriolanus; a nobleman, whom the latter had impeached, and the consequences of whose impeachment (if I had not confined myself to Grecian examples for that part of my subject) had like to have been so fatal to their state. And from this time, the tribunes began a custom of accusing to the people whatever nobles they pleased, several of whom were banished or put to death in every age.

At this time the Romans were very much engaged in wars with their neighbouring states; but upon the least intervals of peace, the quarrels between the nobles and the plebeians would revive; and one of the most frequent subjects of their differences was the conquered lands, which the commons would fain have divided among the publick; but the senate could not be brought to give their consent. For, several of the wisest among the nobles began to apprehend the growing power of the people; and therefore knowing what an accession thereof would accrue to them by such an addition of property, used all means to pievent it: for this the Appian family was most noted, and thereupon most hated by the commons. One of them having made a speech against this division of lands, was impeached by the people of high treason, and a day appointed for his trial: but disdaining to make his defence, he chose rather the usual Roman remedy of killing himself: after whose death the commons prevailed, and the lands were divided among them.

This point was no sooner gained, but new dissensions began: for the plebeians would fain have a law enacted to lay all mens rights and privileges upon the same level: and to enlarge the power of every magistrate within his own jurisdiction, as much as that of the consuls. The tribunes also obtained to have their numbers doubled, which before was five: and the author tells us, that their insolence and power increased with their number, and the seditions were also doubled with it^[3].

By the beginning of the fourth century from the building of Rome, the tribunes proceeded so far in the name of the commons, as to accuse and fine the consuls themselves, who represented the kingly power. And the senate observing, how in all contentions they were forced to yield to the tribunes and people, thought it their wisest course to give way also to time; therefore a decree was made to send ambassadors to Athens, and to the other Grecian commonwealths planted in that part of Italy called Græcia Major, to make a collection of the best laws; out of which, and some of their own, a new complete body of law was formed, afterward known by the name of the laws of the twelve tables.

To digest these laws into order, ten men were chosen, and the administration of all affairs left in their hands; what use they made of it has been already shown. It was certainly a great revolution, produced entirely by the many unjust encroachments of the people; and might have wholly changed the fate of Rome, if the folly and vice of those, who were chiefly concerned, could have suffered it to take root.

A few years after, the commons made farther advances on the power of the nobles; demanding among the rest that the consulship, which hitherto had only been disposed to the former, should now lie in common to the pretensions of any Roman whatsoever. This, though it failed at present, yet afterward obtained, and was a mighty step to the ruin of the commonwealth.

What I have hitherto said of Rome, has been chiefly collected out of that exact and diligent writer Dionysius Halicarnasseus, whose history, through the injury of time, reaches no farther than to the beginning of the fourth century after the building of Rome. The rest I shall supply from other authors; though I do not think it necessary to deduce this matter any farther so very particularly, as I have hitherto done.

To point at what time the balance of power was most equally held between the lords and commons in Rome, would perhaps admit a controversy. Polybius tells us^[4], that in the second Punick war the Carthaginians were declining, because the balance was got too much on the side of the people; whereas the Romans were in their greatest vigour by the power remaining in the senate: yet this was between two and three hundred years after the period Dionysius ends with; in which time the commons had made several farther acquisitions. This however must be granted, that (till about the middle of the fourth century) when the senate appeared resolute at any time upon exerting their authority, and adhered closely together, they did often carry their point. Besides, it is observed by the best authors^[5], that in all the quarrels and tumults at Rome, from the expulsion of the kings, though the people frequently proceeded to rude contumelious language, and sometimes so far as to pull and hale one another about the forum, yet no blood was ever drawn in any popular commotions, till the time of the Gracchi: however, I am of opinion, that the balance had begun many years before to lean to the popular side. But this default was corrected, partly by the principle just mentioned, of never drawing blood in a tumult; partly by the warlike genius of the people, which in those ages was almost perpetually employed; and partly by their great commanders, who, by the credit they had in their armies, fell into the scales as a farther counterpoise to the growing power of the people. Besides, Polybius, who lived in the time of Scipio Africanus the younger, had the same apprehensions of the continual encroachments made by the commons; and being a person of as great abilities, and as much sagacity, as any of his age, from observing the corruptions, which, he says, had already entered into the Roman constitution, did very nearly foretel what would be the issue of them. His words are very remarkable, and with little addition may be rendered to this purpose.^[6] "That those abuses and corruptions, which in time destroy a government, are sown along with the very seeds of it, and both grow up together; and that rust eats away iron, and worms devour wood, and both are a sort of plagues born and bred along with the substance they destroy; so with every form and scheme of government that man can invent, some vice or corruption creeps in with the very institution, which grows up along with, and at last destroys it." The same author^[7], in another place, ventures so far as to guess at the particular fate, which would attend the Roman government. He says, its ruin would arise from the popular tumults, which would introduce a dominatio plebis, or tyranny of the people; wherein it is certain he had reason, and therefore might have adventured to pursue his conjectures so far, as to the consequences of a popular tyranny, which, as perpetual experience teaches, never fails to be followed by the arbitrary government of a single person.

About the middle of the fourth century from the building of Rome, it was declared lawful for nobles and plebeians to intermarry; which custom, among many other states, has proved the most effectual means to ruin the former, and raise the latter.

And now the greatest employments in the state, were, one after another, by laws forcibly enacted by the commons, made free to the people; the consulship itself, the office of censor, that of the quæstors or commissioners of the treasury, the office of prætor or chief-justice, the priesthood, and even that of dictator: the senate, after long opposition, yielding merely for present quiet to the continual urging clamours of the commons, and of the tribunes their advocates. A law was likewise enacted, thot the plebiscita, or a vote of the house of commons, should be of universal obligation; nay, in time the method of enacting laws was wholly inverted; for, whereas the senate used of old to confirm the plebiscita, the people did at last, as they pleased, confirm or disannul the senatusconsulta^[8].

Appius Claudius brought in a custom of admitting to the senate the sons of freedmen, or of such who had once been slaves; by which, and succeeding alterations of the like nature, that great council degenerated into a most corrupt and factious body of men, divided against itself; and its authority became despised.

The century and half following, to the end of the third Punick war by the destruction of Carthage, was a very busy period at Rome; the intervals between every war being so short, that the tribunes and people had hardly leisure or breath to engage in domestick dissensions: however, the little time they could spare, was generally employed the same way. So, Terentius Leo, a tribune, is recorded to have basely prostituted the privileges of a Roman citizen, in perfect spite to the nobles. So, the great African Scipio and his brother, after all their mighty services, were impeached by an ungrateful commons.

However, the warlike genius of the people, and continual employment they had for it, served to divert this humour from running into a head, till the age of the Gracchi.

These persons entering the scene in the time of a full peace, fell violently upon advancing the power of the people, by reducing into practice all those encroachments, which they had been so many years gaining. There were at that time certain conquered lands to be divided, beside a great private estate left by a king: these, the tribunes, by procurement of the elder Gracchus, declared by their legislative authority, were not to be disposed of by the nobles, but by the commons only. The younger brother pursued the same design; and besides, obtained a law, that all Italians should vote at elections, as well as the citizens of Rome: in short, the whole endeavours of them both perpetually turned upon retrenching the nobles authority in all things, but especially in the matter of judicature. And though they both lost their lives in those pursuits, yet they traced out such ways, as were afterward followed by Marius, Sylla, Pompey and Cæsar, to the ruin of the Roman freedom and greatness.

For in the time of Marius, Saturninus a tribune procured a law, that the senate should be bound by oath to agree to whatever the people would enact: and Marius himself, while he was in that office of tribune, is recorded to have with great industry used all endeavours for depressing the nobles, and raising the people, particularly for cramping the former in their power of judicature, which was their most ancient inherent right.

Sylla, by the same measures, became absolute tyrant of Rome: he added three hundred commons to the senate, which perplexed the power of the whole order, and rendered it ineffectual; then flinging off the mask, he abolished the office of tribune, as being only a scaffold to tyranny, whereof he had no farther use.

As to Pompey and Cæsar, Plutarch tells us, that their union for pulling down the nobles (by their credit with the people) was the cause of the civil war, which ended in the tyranny of the latter; both of them in their consulships having used all endeavours and occasions for sinking the authority of the patricians, and giving way to all encroachments of the people, wherein they expected best to find their own account.

From this deduction of popular encroachments in Rome, the reader will easily judge, how much the balance was fallen upon that side. Indeed by this time the very foundation was removed, and it was a moral impossibility that the republick could subsist any longer: for the commons having usurped the offices of state, and trampled on the senate, there was no government left but a dominatio plebis. Let us therefore examine how they proceeded in this conjuncture.

I think it is a universal truth, that the people are much more dexterous at pulling down and setting up, than at preserving what is fixed; and they are not fonder of seizing more than their own, than they are of delivering it up again to the worst bidder, with their own into the bargain. For, although in their corrupt notions of divine worship, they are apt to multiply their gods; yet their earthly devotion is seldom paid to above one idol at a time of their own creation, whose oar they pull with less murmuring and much more skill, than when they share the lading, or even hold the helm.

The several provinces of the Roman empire were now governed by the great men of their state; those upon the frontiers, with powerful armies, either for conquest or defence. These governors, upon any designs of revenge or ambition, were sure to meet with a divided power at home, and therefore bent all their thoughts and applications to close in with the people, who were now by many degrees the stronger party. Two of the greatest spirits, that Rome ever produced, happened to live at the same time, and to be engaged in the same pursuit; and this at a conjuncture the most dangerous for such a contest; these were Pompey and Cæsar, two stars of such a magnitude, that their conjunction was as likely to be fatal, as their opposition.

The tribunes and people, having now subdued all competitors, began the last game of a prevalent populace, which is that of choosing themselves a master; while the nobles foresaw, and used all endeavours left them to prevent it. The people at first made Pompey their admiral with full power over all the Mediterranean, soon after captain-general of all the Roman forces, and governor of Asia. Pompey, on the other side, restored the office of tribune, which Sylla had put down; and in his consulship procured a law for examining into the miscarriages of men in office or command for twenty years past. Many other examples of Pompey's popularity are left us on record, who was a perfect favourite of the people, and designed to be more; but his pretensions grew stale for want of a timely opportunity of introducing them upon the stage. For Cæsar, with his legions in Gaul, was a perpetual check upon his designs; and in the arts of pleasing the people did soon after get many lengths beyond him. For he tells us himself, that the senate, by a bold effort, having made some severe decrees against his proceedings, and against the tribunes, these all left the city, and went over to his party, and consequently along with them the affections and interests of the people; which is farther manifest from the accounts he gives us of the citizens in several towns mutinying against their commanders, and delivering both to his devotion. Besides, Cæsar's publick and avowed pretensions for beginning the civil war, were, to restore the tribunes and the people oppressed (as he pretended) by the nobles.

This forced Pompey, against his inclinations, upon the necessity of changing sides, for fear of being forsaken by both; and of closing in with the senate and chief magistrates, by whom he was chosen general against Cæsar.

Thus at length the senate (at least the primitive part of them, the nobles) under Pompey, and the commons under Caesar, came to a final decision of the long quarrels between them. For, I think, the ambition of private men did by no means begin or occasion this war; though civil dissensions never fail of introducing and spiriting the ambition of private men: who thus become indeed the great instruments for deciding such quarrels, and at last are sure to seize on the prize. But no man, that sees a flock of vultures hovering over two armies ready to engage, can justly charge the blood drawn in the battle to them, though the carcasses fall to their share. For, while the balance of power is equally held, the ambition of private men, whether orators or great commanders, gives neither danger nor fear, nor can possibly enslave their country; but that once broken, the divided parties are forced to unite each to its head, under whose conduct or fortune one side is at first victorious, and at last both are slaves. And to put it past dispute, that this entire subversion of the Roman liberty and constitution was altogether owing to those measures, which had broke the balance between the patricians and plebeians, whereof the ambition of particular men was but an effect and consequence, we need only consider, that when the uncorrupted part of the senate had, by the death of Cæsar, made one great effort to restore the former state and liberty, the success did not answer their hopes; but that whole assembly was so sunk in its authority, that those patriots were forced to fly, and give way to the madness of the people, who by their own dispositions, stirred up with the harangues of their orators, were now wholly bent upon single and despotick slavery. Else, how could such a profligate as Antony, or a boy of eighteen, like Octavius, ever dare to dream of giving the law to such an empire and people? wherein the latter succeeded, and entailed the vilest tyranny, that Heaven in its anger ever inflicted on a corrupt and poisoned people. And this, with so little appearance at Cæsar's death, that when Cicero wrote to Brutus, how he had prevailed by his credit with Octavius to promise him (Brutus) pardon and security for his person, that great Roman received the notice with the utmost indignity, and returned Cicero an answer, yet upon record, full of the highest resentment and contempt for such an offer, and from such a hand.

Here ended all show or shadow of liberty in Rome. Here was the repository of all the wise contentions and struggles for power between the nobles and commons, lapped up safely in the bosom of a Nero and a Caligula, a Tiberius and a Domitian.

Let us now see from this deduction of particular impeachments, and general dissensions in Greece and Rome, what, conclusions may naturally be formed for instruction of any other state, that may haply upon many points labour under the like circumstances.

1. Dionys. Halicar.
2. Ab urbe condita; from the building of the city.
3. Dionys. Halicar.
4. Fragm. lib. 6.
5. Dionys. Hal. Plutarch, &c.
6. Lib. 5.
7. Fragm. lib. 6.
8. Dionys. lib. 2.