tion,
with the insignia of the highest official honour--the purple border of
the consular, and the golden amulet-case of the triumphator. But,
while in the earlier period the hereditariness of the outward dignity
had been to a certain extent conditioned by the inheritance of
intrinsic worth, and the senatorial aristocracy had guided the state
not primarily by virtue of hereditary right, but by virtue of the
highest of all rights of representation--the right of the excellent,
as contrasted with the ordinary, man--it sank in this epoch (and with
specially great rapidity after the end of the Hannibalic war) from its
original high position, as the aggregate of those in the community who
were most experienced in counsel and action, down to an order of lords
filling up its ranks by hereditary succession, and exercising
collegiate misrule.

Family Government

Indeed, matters had already at this time reached such a height, that
out of the grave evil of oligarchy there emerged the still worse evil
of usurpation of power by particular families. We have already
spoken(19) of the offensive family-policy of the conqueror of Zama,
and of his unhappily successful efforts to cover with his own laurels
the incapacity and pitifulness of his brother; and the nepotism of the
Flaminini was, if possible, still more shameless and scandalous than
that of the Scipios. Absolute freedom of election in fact turned to
the advantage of such coteries far more than of the electing body.
The election of Marcus Valerius Corvus to the consulship at twenty-
three had doubtless been for the benefit of the state; but now, when
Scipio obtained the aedileship at twenty-three and the consulate at
thirty, and Flamininus, while not yet thirty years of age, rose from
the quaestorship to the consulship, such proceedings involved serious
danger to the republic. Things had already reached such a pass, that
the only effective barrier against family rule and its consequences
had to be found in a government strictly oligarchical; and this was
the reason why even the party otherwise opposed to the oligarchy
agreed to restrict the freedom of election.

Government of the Nobility
Internal Administration

The government bore the stamp of this gradual change in the spirit of
the governing class. It is true that the administration of external
affairs was still dominated at this epoch by that consistency and
energy, by which the rule of the Roman community over Ita