Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/374

322 people did at last, as they pleased, confirm or disannul the senatusconsulta.

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