became the protector of them, that pleaded their cause in the senate, that defended their rights and interests, and, forgetting his title of conqueror, remembered only that of patron and father, to treat them all as his clients and children.

The second expedient employed by Romulus, was not to disdain the admission of shepherds, slaves, and men of no substance or family, into the number of his subjects and citizens. [m] He knew the beginnings of cities and states, as of all other human things, were weak and obscure, and that the founders of states had thence taken occasion to feign, that their first inhabitants were the offspring or sons of the earth. He received therefore all fugitives into his asylum, whom the love of liberty, and prosecutions for debts, or other reasons, obliged to seek a retreat. This first concession, joined to the feast of the Saturnalia, which Numa afterwards instituted, in which the masters admitted their slaves to a share in the same entertainment, and lived with them in a state of perfect equality, inspired the Romans with greater mildness and good-nature towards their slaves, than any other republic whatsoever. Every citizen had the power, by setting his slaves at liberty, of making them Roman citizens like himself, of granting them the rank and all the privileges annexed to it, aud of uniting them to the state in so strict and honourable a manner, that there was no instance of any freeman that did not prefer this new country to the place of his nativity and family.

By these two expedients Rome was continually renewed and strengthened. By the same means its losses were repaired, and the places of the ancient families, extinct by the accidents of war, supplied; recruits were always found ready within itself, to fill up the legions, and subjects capable of discharging every em

[m] Urbes quoque, ut cetera, tere consilio condentium urbes, qui ex infimo nasci: deinde, quas sua obscuram atque humilem concienvirtus ac dii juvent, magnas sibi do ad se multitudinem, natam è opes magnumque nomen facere... terrâ sibi prolem ementiebantur; Adjiciendæ multitudinis causa; ve- asylum aperit. Liv. 1. 1. p. 8, 9. ployment

ployment of peace and war; and when overcharged with too great numbers, it was enabled to send out numerous swarms to live at a distance, and to plant powerful colonies upon its frontiers, which served as bulwarks against the enemy, and secured the new conquests.

By continually incorporating foreigners and changing them into citizens and members of the state, it communicated to them its manners, maxims, spirit, noble sentiments, and zeal for the public; and by giving them a share in its power, advantages, and glory, it formed a constant flourishing state, equally supported and aggrandized from without and within.

[n] The Romans always avoided the capital fault of Pericles, though otherwise one of the greatest politicians that ever Greece had, in declaring that none should be held as natural and true Athenians, but such as had both Athenian fathers and mothers. By this single decree, which excluded above one quarter of the citizens, he extremely weakened the commonwealth. He disabled it from making conquests, or maintaining them; and being obliged to rest satisfied with having the conquered towns for allies or tributaries, instead of uniting them to himself as members of the body of the state, and parts of the republic, according to the principles of the Romans, he soon saw them shake off their new yoke, and assert their liberty.

Loj Dionysius Halicarnasseus justly looks upon the custom introduced by Romulus, of incorporating the conquered cities and nations into the state, as a most excellent maxim of policy, and what principally contributed to the establishment and support of the Roman grandeur. He observes, that it was the contempt or ignorance of this maxim, which ruined the power of Greece, disabled Sparta from recovering it

[n] Plut. in Vit. Pericl.

[ο] Κράπισον απάντων πολιτευμάτων Exipov & xal T ́s Bebaix 'Pwpalois theu6

θερίας ήρχε, καὶ τῶν ἐπὶ τὴν ἡγεμονίων ἀναγόντων ἐν ἐλακίσην μοίραν παρέσχε. Dionys. Halic. Antiq. Rom. lib. 2.

self

self after the battle of Leuctra, and lost the Thebans and Athenians the empire of Greece for ever, after that of Cheronea; whereas the Roman republic has been seen to survive the most bloody defeats, and to send new armies into the field, stili more numerous than those they had lost.

The emperor Claudius, in an excellent discourse he made to the senate, to justify his having granted the privileges of Roman citizens to the people of Gaul, has judiciously observed, [p] that what ruined the republics of Lacedæmon and Athens, was the extreme difference they made between their own citizens and the conquered states, treating the last always as foreigners, keeping them always distinct from the community, and thereby preventing them from having any concern in' the good of the public; whereas the founder of Rome, by a far more profound policy, incorporated the people he conquered into the number of his citizens, and, on the very day he had fought against them as enemies, received then as members of the state, admitted them to all the privileges of natural subjects, and engaged them out of interest to defend the very city which they had lately attacked.

It was principally by this means, as we have already observed, that the largest empire that ever was, made up a body, whose parts were all united far more by affection than fear. The Romans had colonies in all countries, and the people of all the provinces were admitted to share in the government of the state, without almost any difference between them and the conquerors. [g] the two Gauls were filled with consular families. The civil and military employments were

[P] Quid aliud exitio Lacedæmoniis & Atheniensibus fuit, quanquam armis pollerent, nisi quòd victos pro alienigenis arcebant? At conditor noster Romulus tantum sapientia valuit, ut plerosque populos eodem die hostes, dein cives habuerit. Tacit. Annal. lib. 11. c. 24. [q] Cetera in communi sita sunt: said Cerealis, general of the Ro

man armies, to the citizens of Treces and Langres) Ipsi plerumque legionibus nostris præsidetis: ipsi has aliasque provincias regitis. Nihil separatum, clausumve. Proinde pacem & urbem, quam victi victoresque eodem jure obtinemus, amate, colite. Tacit. Hist. lib. 4. cap. 74.

alike supplied by Romans and the natives of the country. St. Augustine somewhere observes, that at Carthage it was hard to distinguish between the free and the conquered, her citizens and those of Rome having all things so much in common, and the government so equally shared between them both.

This principle of policy, so constantly observed by the Romans in all ages, is very worthy our attention, aud may be of great use to us. Haughtiness and severity serve only to keep up a dangerous division, which will break out upon the first occasion. Good treatment on the contrary makes a conqueror beloved, gains the affections of the new government, obliterates ancient grudges; and as a conquered people serve generally as a frontier, their fidelity becomes a firmer and surer barrier than all bulwarks whatsoever.

THE THIRD CHARACTER OF THE ROMANS.

The wise Deliberations in the Senate.

The third character is the wisdom of the senate, which began under Romulus to assume a fixed and settled form. [r] The senate was the public council of the nation, always subsisting, not composed of arbitrary members, but made up of persons chosen out of the most considerable families. The senators, interested by their fortunes and dignities in the success of the government, and capable of governing wisely through their age and experience, held the balance even, between the sovereign authority of the prince, and the weakness of the people, and supplied a number of magistrates, well formed and prepared for the

[r] Majores nostri, cùm regum potestatem non tulissent, ita magistratus annuos creaverunt, ut consilium Senatus reipublicæ præponerent sempiternum: deligerentur autem in id consilium ab universo populo aditusque in illum summum ordinem omnium civium industria ac virtuti pateret. Senatum reip.

custodem, præsidem, propugnatorem collocaverunt. Hujus ordinis auctoritate uti magistratus & quasi ministros gravissimi consilii esse voluerunt: Senatum autem ipsum proximorum ordinum splendore confirmari, plebis libertatem & - commoda tueri atque augere voluerunt, Cic. Orat. pro Sext. n. 137. greatest

greatest employments by an excellent education, and replete with knowledge and sentiments superior to the vulgar. They were called Fathers, Patres, that on the one side they might remember they were placed in a high station, and held a rank of distinction, in order to their being the protectors of the people, whose advantage they ought to procure with the vigilance, zeal, and the disinterestedness of a parent; and, on the other hand, that the people might be reminded of the respect and affection they were obliged to bear them, and the confidence they ought to have in their counsel, credit and protection.

This senate was in all after-ages the firmest support, the principal strength, and greatest refuge of the state, even under the emperors. We all know the famous speech of Cineas, whom Pyrrhus sent on an embassy to the Romans. Upon his return he told his master, the grandeur and majesty of the Roman senate was such [s] that they seemed to him like an assembly of kings. [t] The glory and duration of the empire (says the emperor Otho upon occasion of an insurrection, wherein he was apprehensive for the senate) does not lie in buildings nor in outward magnificence. Whatever is but material is a trifle; it may be destroyed and repaired, without any essential alteration. But to strike at the authority of the senate, is to attack the being of the state, and the safety of the prince.

I shall have occasion to speak of the senate in another place, when I shall more particularly enquire into the form of government established in the Roman republic.

[s] Quem qui ex regibus constare dixit, unus veram speciem Romani senatûs cepit. Liv. lib. 9.

n. 17.

[t] Quid? Vos pulcherrimam hanc urbem domibus & tectis, &

congestu lapidum stare creditis? Muta ista & inanima intercidere ac reparari promiscua sunt: æternitas rerum, & pax gentium, & mea cum vestrâ salus, incolumitate senatûs firmatur. Tacit. Hist. lib. 1. c. 84.

The