y.

I do not agree with you, however, when you would imply that aristocracy
is preferable to royalty. If you suppose that wisdom governs the State,
is it not as well that this wisdom should reside in one monarch as in
many nobles?

But we are led away by a certain incorrectness of terms in a discussion
like the present. When we pronounce the word "aristocracy," which, in
Greek, signifies the government of the best men, what can be conceived
more excellent? For what can be thought better than the best? But when,
on the other hand, the title "king" is mentioned, we begin to imagine a
tyrant; as if a king must be necessarily unjust. But we are not
speaking of an unjust king when we are examining the true nature of
royal authority. To this name of king, therefore, do but attach the
idea of a Romulus, a Numa, a Tullus, and perhaps you will be less
severe to the monarchical form of constitution.

_Mummius_. Have you, then, no commendation at all for any kind of
democratical government?

_Scipio._ Why, I think some democratical forms less objectionable than
others; and, by way of illustration, I will ask you what you thought of
the government in the isle of Rhodes, where we were lately together;
did it appear to you a legitimate and rational constitution?

_Mummius_. It did, and not much liable to abuse.

_Scipio._ You say truly. But, if you recollect, it was a very
extraordinary experiment. All the inhabitants were alternately senators
and citizens. Some months they spent in their senatorial functions, and
some months they spent in their civil employments. In both they
exercised judicial powers; and in the theatre and the court, the same
men judged all causes, capital and not capital. And they had as much
influence, and were of as much importance as * * *

FRAGMENTS.

XXXVI. There is therefore some unquiet feeling in
individuals, which either exults in pleasure or is crushed by
annoyance.

[_The next is an incomplete sentence, and, as such,
unintelligible_.]

The Phoenicians were the first who by their commerce, and by
the merchandise which they carried, brought avarice and
magnificence and insatiable degrees of everything into
Greece.

Sardanapalus, the luxurious king of Assyria, of whom Tully,
in the third book of his treatise on the Republic, says, "The
notorious Sardanapalus, far more deformed by his vices than
even by his name.