Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/371

Rh 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, 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, that in all the quarrels and tumults at