Senate, Mr Froude holds, was "too ignorant, too selfish, too divided," to satisfy these conditions. We shall come presently to the actual state of things which confronted Cæsar. We are now enquiring whether the Roman Constitution was essentially and necessarily unequal to such a work. As Mr Froude says, the Senate was "in theory" a real aristocracy. But we must remember that it had not always been so "in theory" alone. During the most brilliant period of Roman history it had been a real aristocracy in fact. Government by the Senate was the result of the struggle between patricians and plebeians; and it was the Senate that ruled Rome from the end of the Samnite wars to the conquest of Macedonia—that is, during the earlier and more arduous part of her progress from Italian supremacy to universal empire. The Senate of this period was not an oligarchy of birth or wealth, but a body of practical statesmen, representing the best popular judgment, and protected by life-tenure from servility to popular caprice. Its control of the treasury, of the magistracies, and of foreign affairs was firm enough for political stability, but not too absolute for freedom. The periodical scrutiny by the censors was not as yet a hollow form or a pedantic farce, but operated as an efficient moral check. Above all, the Senate was responsible to an intelligent public opinion, which afforded the best guarantee against reckless appointments or corrupt measures, making itself felt both as an impulse and as a restraint. Mommsen holds as decidedly as Mr Froude that
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