Page:1888 Cicero's Tusculan Disputations.djvu/399

 length the termination of all this infinite licentiousness is, that the minds of the citizens become so fastidious and effeminate, that when they observe even the slightest exertion of authority they grow angry and seditious, and thus the laws begin to be neglected, so that the people are absolutely without any master at all.

Then Lælius said: You have very accurately rendered the opinions which he expressed. XLIV. Scipio. Now, to return to the argument of my discourse. It appears that this extreme license, which is the only, liberty in the eyes of the vulgar, is, according to Plato, such that from it as a sort of root tyrants naturally arise and spring up. For as the excessive power of an aristocracy occasions the destruction of the nobles, so this excessive liberalism of democracies brings after it the slavery of the people. Thus we find in the weather, the soil, and the animal constitution the most favorable conditions are sometimes suddenly converted by their excess into the contrary, and this fact is especially observable in political governments; and this excessive liberty soon brings the people collectively and individually to an excessive servitude. For, as I said, this extreme liberty easily introduces the reign of tyranny, the severest of all unjust slaveries. In fact, from the midst of this unbridled and capricious populace, they elect some one as a leader in opposition to their afflicted and expelled nobles: some new chief, forsooth, audacious and impure, often insolently persecuting those who have deserved well of the State, and ready to gratify the populace at his neighbor's expense as well as his own. Then, since the private condition is naturally exposed to fears and alarms, the people invest him with many powers, and these are continued in his hands. Such men, like Pisistratus of Athens, will soon find an excuse for surrounding themselves with body-guards, and they will conclude by becoming tyrants over the very persons who raised them to dignity. If such despots perish by the vengeance of the better citizens, as is generally the case, the constitution is re-established; but if they fall by the hands of bold insurgents, then the same faction succeeds them, which is only another species of tyranny. And the same revolution arises