LOCRIS.

ZALEUCUS was of Locris in Italy, not far distant from Sybaris. He was a disciple of Pythagoras, of noble birth, and admirable morals. Having acquired the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens, they chose him for their legislator. Unfortunately, little remains of his laws but their preamble. But this is in a style so superior to that of all the other legislators, as to excite regret for the loss of his code. In this preamble he declares, that all those who shall inhabit the city ought, above all things, to be persuaded that there is a God; and, if they elevate their eyes and thoughts towards the heavens, they will be convinced that the disposition of the heavenly bodies, and the order which reigns in all nature are not the work of men nor of chance; that, therefore, they ought to adore the gods, as the authors of all which life presents us of good and beautiful; that they should hold their souls pure from every vice, because the gods accept neither the prayers, offerings, or sacrifices of the wicked, and are pleased only with the just and beneficent actions of virtuous men. Having thus, in the beginning of his laws, fixed the attention of his fellow-citizens upon piety and wisdom, he ordains, above all things, that there should never be among them any irreconcilable enmity; but, on the contrary, that those animosities which might arise among them, should be only a passage to a sure and sincere reconciliation; and that he who would not submit himself to these sentiments, should be regarded as a savage in a civilized community. The chiefs of his republic ought not to govern with arrogance nor pride; nor should the magistrates be guided in their judgments by hatred nor by friendship.

This preamble, instead of addressing itself to the ignorance, prejudices, and superstitious fears of savages, for the purpose of binding them to an absurd system of hunger and glory for a family, like the laws of Lycurgus, places religion, morals, and government upon a basis of philosophy which is rational, intelligible, and eternal, for the real happiness of man in society, and throughout his duration.

The principle adopted by this legislator, as the motive to action next to the sense of duty and social obligation, was the sense of honor, like that of Lycurgus. As Zaleucus was a disciple of Pythagoras, whose favorite plan of government was a well-tempered aristocracy, we may conjecture that such was the form recommended to the Locrians. But all are lost; and certainly no argument can be drawn from them in favor of one popular assembly. If, in visiting the Sybarites and Locrians, we have found nothing in favor of M. Turgot's system, nor any thing very material against it, we have found a greater advance towards civilization than in all the laws of Lycurgus and Solon, excepting only the trial by jury, instituted by the latter; I mean the preamble of Zaleucus; and the general education to letters in schools, at the public expense, by Charondas.

ROME.

Plebeians scrambling after Patricians; or Democracy hunting down Aristocracy; or Tribunes in chase of a Senate.

WE elsewhere see, in the history of Rome, with what eagerness the aristocracy pursued and demolished the monarchy. The kings are commonly reproached with tyranny, and the nobles are applauded for resistance to them; but it is clear that the nobles were as tyrannical as they; and that their eternal plots and conspiracies against the kings, their power, their crown, and their lives, were the cause and the provocation to that tyranny. It is impossible to say which were worst, the nobles or the kings; both were bad enough in general, and both frequently violated the laws, as will ever happen when there are but two branches. The people, as yet, had no adequate power to aid or control either. By the institution of Romulus, indeed, the Roman people, even the lowest class of the citizens, instead of being prohibited to engage in all kinds of labor, after the example of the Spartans, were directed to apply themselves to pasturage, agriculture, and mechanic arts. This had its natural effect; and immediately after the revolution, by which the monarchy was abolished and aristocracy set up, though we find the patricians at their usual game of encroaching on the people, yet there was a people, a numerous, hardy, courageous people, who were not disposed to submit. They soon began a resistance, and to demand more power to resist; and having obtained one concession, they required another, until they obtained an equality with the patricians.

So far they were in the right; and if the two powers could have remained equal, justice, liberty, and happiness, the effect of equal laws, might have been enjoyed. But human nature can never rest; once in motion, it rolls, like the stone of Sisyphus, every instant when the resisting force is suspended. Diodorus Siculus is very right, lib. xix., when he says: "It is of the nature of man to aspire continually at something greater than his present condition, and to wish that his power might increase, instead of decreasing or resting as it is." Dr. Ferguson, who follows very accurately Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Livy, and Polybius, will furnish us with a good account of the steps by which the Roman people proceeded to augment their own power, and diminish that of the senate, until they obtained the whole. I shall give an abridgment of the story, very nearly in Ferguson's words. In their career, however, the people lost their morals and their wisdom, as they ever will in such a course, and they were ready to confer the sovereignty on the line of Cæsars, even before they had completely obtained it. Those irregularities, and that final catastrophe, were all occasioned by the imperfections in their balance. If the consuls had been possessed of a negative in the legislature, and of all the executive authority, and the senate and people had been made equal and independent in the first establishment of the commonwealth, it is impossible for any man to prove that the republic would not have remained in vigor and in glory at this hour.2

"The government of Rome," (in the two hundred and fortyfourth year from the building of the city, after the expulsion of Tarquin,) "was become wholly aristocratical. The nobles, exclusively, had the legislative, executive, and judicial power, without any third party to hold the balance between them and the people; for the consuls, although they were executive magistrates, united in their persons the dignities of the state, those of judges, magistrates, and military leaders, were understood to come in the place of kings, and performed all the functions of royalty; yet they were only parts and ministers of the senate.

"While the exiled king was endeavoring, by continual invasions, to recover his power, disputes arose between the parties who had joined to expel him. Creditors, supported by the aristocracy, of which the nobles were now in full possession, became severe in the exaction of debts, or the patrons laid claim to more than the clients were willing to pay. The state was distracted at once by its enemies from abroad, and by the dissension of parties at home. The authority of the new government not being sufficient to contend with these difficulties, the senate resolved to place themselves and the commonwealth, for a limited time, under the power of a single person, under the title of dic

tator.

"The inferior class of the people, almost excluded from any share in the new government, soon found that, under its influence, they had more oppression to fear from their patrons, than they had ever experienced from the prince they had banished. So long as the king and the senate shared in the powers of the state, the one took part with the people, when the other attempted to oppress them; and it was the ordinary interest and policy of the prince to weaken the nobles, by supporting the plebeians against them. This effect of the monarchy still, in some measure, remained so long as the exiled king was alive, maintained his pretensions, and made the united services of the people necessary to the senate; but, upon the death of the king, the nobles availed themselves of their power, and enforced their claims on the people with extreme severity. In the capacity of creditors, they imprisoned, whipped, and enslaved, those who were indebted to them, and held the liberties and lives of their fellow-citizens at their mercy. The whole body of plebeians was alarmed; they saw more formidable enemies in the persons of their own nobility, than in the armies of any nation whatever. Many, who had already suffered under the rod of their creditors, when called upon to enlist, showed their limbs galled with fetters, or torn with stripes, which they had received by command of their merciless patrons.

"These distractions obliged the senate to have recourse to another dictator; and Valerius, who was appointed for his popularity, repelled the enemy. The senate, upon his return, not fulfilling his promises to the people, they retired to the Sacred Mountain. The senate was obliged to negotiate, to mitigate the severities against insolvent debtors, and consent to the appointment of tribunes. This was in the year 260, sixteen years after the revolution."

Had the plebeians "discontinued their collective assemblies for every purpose but elections, and increased their tribunes" to four or five hundred representatives, even this would not have been a radical cure, without separating the consuls from the senate, and giving them, or one of them, the executive power, and a negative both upon the senate and popular assembly in the legislature; but there was too much prejudice, and too little knowledge, for so great an improvement. The people contented themselves with the appointment of a leader, under the name of Tribune, who, without power effectually to protect them, had enough to head every popular tumult, and blow up every spark to a flame. An assembly of representatives would have had an equal right with the senate to propose laws, to deliberate, debate, alter, amend, improve. But the tribunes were authorized only to forbid any measure they thought injurious; but not to propose any law, or move any resolution. Not permitted to mix with the senators, they had places at the door of the senate house, as their office was felt to be a dangerous one. Their persons were made sacred; and every one was devoted to the infernal gods who should even strike them. An oath was to be taken to observe this law; and the idea of the sanctity of a tribune took such deep root, that the emperors afterwards were protected from assassins by this sacred title of Tribune.

"The college of tribunes, at first, was not limited to any number; but, in process of time, they increased from three to ten."

Patricians could not by law be elected; yet the people, to show that they never will be steady to any law, even to those most directly contrived for their benefit, sometimes departed from this.

"The tribunes were at first elected in the curiæ, where the vote of the poorest citizen was equal to that of the most wealthy. But, even here, the patricians, besides their great influence, had