ew, and of the many if it might
be--but at any rate in the hands of a few. That those few should be so
select as to admit of no new-comers among them, would probably have been
a portion of his political creed, had he not been himself a "novus
homo." As he was the first of his family to storm the barrier of the
fortress, he had been forced to depend much on popular opinion; but not
on that account had there been any dealings between him and democracy.
That the Empire should be governed according to the old oligarchical
forms which had been in use for more than four centuries, and had
created the power of Rome--that was his political creed. That Consuls,
Censors, and Senators might go on to the end of time with no diminution
of their dignity, but with great increase of justice and honor and truth
among them--that was his political aspiration. They had made Rome what
it was, and he knew and could imagine nothing better; and, odious as an
oligarchy is seen to be under the strong light of experience to which
prolonged ages has subjected it, the aspiration on his part was noble.
He has been wrongly accused of deserting "that democracy with which he
had flirted in his youth." There had been no democracy in his youth,
though there had existed such a condition in the time of the Gracchi.
There was none in his youth and none in his age. That which has been
wrongly called democracy was conspiracy--not a conspiracy of democrats
such as led to our Commonwealth, or to the American Independence, or to
the French Revolution; but conspiracy of a few nobles for the better
assurance of the plunder, and the power, and the high places of the
Empire. Of any tendency toward democracy no man has been less justly
accused than Cicero, unless it might be Caesar. To Caesar we must accord
the merit of having seen that a continuation of the old oligarchical
forms was impracticable This Cicero did not see. He thought that the
wounds inflicted by the degeneracy and profligacy of individuals were
curable. It is attributed to Caesar that he conceived the grand idea of
establishing general liberty under the sole dominion of one great, and
therefore beneficent, ruler. I think he saw no farther than that he, by
strategy, management, and courage might become this ruler, whether
beneficent or the reverse. But here I think that it becomes the writer,
whether he be historian, biographer, or fill whatever meaner position he
may in literature, to declare that no b