their terms of office, to carry out their ends even to the extent of suspending the constitution—getting the forced assent of the assembled people, who were surrounded by armed men. And then, eventually, the head executive agent, nominally reëlected from time to time but practically permanent, became, in the person of Cosmo de' Medici, the founder of an inherited headship.
But the liability of the compound political head to become subject to its civil agents, is far less than its liability to become subject to its military agents. From the earliest times this liability has been exemplified and commented upon; and, familiar as it is, I must here illustrate and emphasize it, because it directly bears on one of the cardinal truths of political theory. Setting out with the Greeks we observe, in the first place, that the tyrants, by whom oligarchies were so often overthrown, had armed forces at their disposal. Either the tyrant was "the executive magistrate, upon whom the oligarchy themselves had devolved important administrative powers," or he was a demagogue, who pleaded the alleged interests of the community, "in order to surround" himself "with armed defenders"—soldiers being in either case the agents of his usurpation. And then, in the second place, we see the like done by the successful general. As Macchiavelli remarks of the Romans: "For the further abroad they [the generals] carried their arms, the more necessary such prolongations [of their commissions] appeared, and the more common they became; hence it arose, in the first place, that but a few of their citizens could be employed in the command of armies, and consequently few were capable of acquiring any considerable degree of experience or reputation; and in the next, that when a commander in chief was continued for a long time in that post, he had an opportunity of corrupting his army to such a degree that the soldiers entirely threw off their obedience to the senate, and acknowledged no authority but his. To this it was owing that Sylla and Marius found means to debauch their armies and make them fight against their country; and that Julius Cæsar was enabled to make himself absolute in Rome."
The Italian republics, again, furnish many illustrations. By the beginning of the fourteenth century, those of Lombardy "all submitted themselves to the military power of some nobles to whom they had intrusted the command of their militias, and thus all lost their liberty." Later times and nearer regions yield instances. At home Cromwell showed how the successful general tends to become autocrat. In the Netherlands the same thing was exemplified by the Van Arteveldes, father and son, and again by Maurice of Nassau; and, but for form's sake, it would be needless to name the case of Napoleon. It should be added that not only by command of armed forces is the military chief enabled to seize on supreme power, but acquired popularity, especially in a militant nation, places him in a position which makes it relatively easy to do this. Neither their own experience, nor
