invested with
the supreme command, whether dictators or consuls.

XXXIII. But as the nature of things necessarily brought it to pass that
the people, once freed from its kings, should arrogate to itself more
and more authority, we observe that after a short interval of only
sixteen years, in the consulship of Postumus Cominius and Spurius
Cassius, they attained their object; an event explicable, perhaps, on
no distinct principle, but, nevertheless, in a manner independent of
any distinct principle. For recollect what I said in commencing our
discourse, that if there exists not in the State a just distribution
and subordination of rights, offices, and prerogatives, so as to give
sufficient domination to the chiefs, sufficient authority to the
counsel of the senators, and sufficient liberty to the people, this
form of the government cannot be durable.

For when the excessive debts of the citizens had thrown the State into
disorder, the people first retired to Mount Sacer, and next occupied
Mount Aventine. And even the rigid discipline of Lycurgus could not
maintain those restraints in the case of the Greeks. For in Sparta
itself, under the reign of Theopompus, the five magistrates whom they
term Ephori, and in Crete ten whom they entitle Cosmi, were established
in opposition to the royal power, just as tribunes were added among us
to counterbalance the consular authority.

XXXIV. There might have been a method, indeed, by which our ancestors
could have been relieved from the pressure of debt, a method with which
Solon the Athenian, who lived at no very distant period before, was
acquainted, and which our senate did not neglect when, in the
indignation which the odious avarice of one individual excited, all the
bonds of the citizens were cancelled, and the right of arrest for a
while suspended. In the same way, when the plebeians were oppressed by
the weight of the expenses occasioned by public misfortunes, a cure and
remedy were sought for the sake of public security. The senate,
however, having forgotten their former decision, gave an advantage to
the democracy; for, by the creation of two tribunes to appease the
sedition of the people, the power and authority of the senate were
diminished; which, however, still remained dignified and august,
inasmuch as it was still composed of the wisest and bravest men, who
protected their country both with their arms and with their counsels;
whose authority was exceedingly strong