Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/224

172 When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the rising evils, but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles: every other correction is either useless or a new evil. While Rome preserved its principles intire, the power of judging might without any abuse be lodged in the hands of senators: but as soon as this city was corrupted, let the judicial authority be transferred to whatsoever body, whether to the senate, to the knights, to the treasurers, to two of these bodies, to all three together, or to any other; matters still went always wrong. The knights had no more virtue than the senate, the treasurers no more than the knights, and these as little as the centurions.

When the people of Rome had obtained the privilege of sharing the magistracy with the Patricians, it was natural to think that their flatterers would immediately become arbiters of the government. But no such thing ever happened.— It was observable that the very people who had rendered the plebeians capable of public offices, constantly fixed their choice upon the Patricians. Because they were virtuous, they were magnanimous; and because they were free, they had a contempt of power. But when their morals were corrupted, the more power they were possessed of, the less prudent was their conduct; till at length upon becoming their own tyrants and slaves, they lost the strength of liberty to fall into the weakness and impotency of licentiousness. Rh