nobility in
arrogance, title-hunting, and client-making, sought support for his
personal and almost dynastic policy of opposition to the senate in the
multitude, which he not only charmed by the dazzling effect of his
personal qualities, but also bribed by his largesses of grain; in the
legions, whose favour he courted by all means whether right or wrong;
and above all in the body of clients, high and low, that personally
adhered to him. Only the dreamy mysticism, on which the charm as well
as the weakness of that remarkable man so largely depended, never
suffered him to awake at all, or allowed him to awake but imperfectly,
out of the belief that he was nothing, and that he desired to be
nothing, but the first burgess of Rome.

To assert the possibility of a reform would be as rash as to deny it:
this much is certain, that a thorough amendment of the state in all
its departments was urgently required, and that in no quarter was any
serious attempt made to accomplish it. Various alterations in
details, no doubt, were made on the part of the senate as well as on
the part of the popular opposition. The majorities in each were still
well disposed, and still frequently, notwithstanding the chasm that
separated the parties, joined hands in a common endeavour to effect
the removal of the worst evils. But, while they did not stop the evil
at its source, it was to little purpose that the better-disposed
listened with anxiety to the dull murmur of the swelling flood and
worked at dikes and dams. Contenting themselves with palliatives,
and failing to apply even these--especially such as were the most
important, the improvement of justice, for instance, and the
distribution of the domains--in proper season and due measure, they
helped to prepare evil days for their posterity. By neglecting to
break up the field at the proper time, they allowed weeds even to
ripen which they had not sowed. To the later generations who survived
the storms of revolution the period after the Hannibalic war appeared
the golden age of Rome, and Cato seemed the model of the Roman
statesman. It was in reality the lull before the storm and the epoch
of political mediocrities, an age like that of the government of
Walpole in England; and no Chatham was found in Rome to infuse fresh
energy into the stagnant life of the nation. Wherever we cast our
eyes, chinks and rents are yawning in the old building; we see workmen
busy sometimes in filling them