him of aiming at the crown. A tribune who should be
practically irremovable, as well as legally irresistible, was
little less than an emperor. The senate carried on the
conflict as men do who fight, not for public interests but
for their own existence. They rescinded the agrarian
laws. They murdered the popular leaders. They abandoned the constitution to save themselves, and invested
Sylla with a power beyond all monarchs, to exterminate
their foes. The ghastly conception of a magistrate legally proclaimed superior to all the laws was familiar to the stern spirit of the Romans. The decemvirs had enjoyed that arbitrary authority; but practically they were restrained by the two provisions which alone were deemed efficacious in Rome, the short duration of office, and its distribution among several colleagues. But the appointment of Sylla was neither limited nor divided. It was to last as long as he chose. Whatever he might do was
right; and he was empowered to put whomsoever he
pleased to death, without trial or accusation. All the
victims who were butchered by his satellites suffered with the fun sanction of the law.
When at last the democracy conquered, the Augustan monarchy, by which they perpetuated their triumph, was moderate in comparison with the licensed tyranny of the aristocratic chief. The Emperor was the constitutional head of the Republic, armed with all the powers requisite to master the senate. The instrument which had served to cast down the patricians was efficient against the new aristocracy of wealth and office. The tribunician power, conferred in perpetuity, made it unnecessary to create a king or a dictator. Thrice the senate proposed to Augustus the supreme power of making laws. He declared that the power of the tribunes already supplied him with all that he required. It enabled him to preserve the forms of a simulated republic. The most popular of all the magistracies of Rome furnished the marrow of Imperialism. For the Empire was created, not by usurpation, but by the legal act of a jubilant people, eager to close the era of bloodshed and to secure the
