that had anything to propose concerning the
commonwealth, had power to debate and prepare all the businesses that
were to be introduced into the Senate. The Achaeans had ten selected
magistrates called the demiurgs, constituting a council apart called the
synarchy, which, with the strategus, prepared all the business that was
introduced into their Senate. But both the Senate of the Athenians, and
that of the Achaeans, would have wondered if a man had told them that
they were to receive all comers and discourses, to the end that they
might refer them afterward to the Prytans or the synarchy, much less
to an occasional committee, exposed to the catch that catch may of the
parties interested. And yet Venice in this, as in most of her orders,
excels them all by the constitution of her councils, that of the
College, and the other of the Dieci, or Council of Ten. The course of
the College is exactly described in the ensuing order: and for that
of the Dieci, it so little differs from what it has bestowed upon Our
Dictator, that I need not make any particular description of it. But to
dictatorian power in general, and the use of it (because it must needs
be of difficult digestion to such as, puking still at ancient prudence,
show themselves to be in the nursery of mother-wit); it is no less than
necessary to say something. And, first, in a commonwealth that is not
wrought up, or perfected, this power will be of very frequent, if not
continual, use; wherefore it is said more than once, upon defects of the
government, in the book of Judges, 'that in those days there was no king
in Israel.' Nor has the translator, though for 'no king, he should have
said 'no judge,' abused you so much; seeing that the Dictator (and such
was the Judge of Israel) or the dictatorian power being in a single
person, so little differs from monarchy, which followed in that, that
from the same cause there has been no other effect in any commonwealth:
as in Rome was manifest by Sylla and Caesar, who to make themselves
absolute or sovereign, had no more to do than to prolong their
magistracy, for the dictatorian power was reputed divine, and therefore
irresistible.

"Nevertheless, so it is, that without this power, which is so dangerous,
and subject to introduce monarchy, a commonwealth cannot be safe from
falling into the like dissolution; unless you have an expedient in
this case of your own, and bound up by your providence from recoiling.
Expedients in