It is curious to see a tyrant of Greece give lessons in democracy to a Roman. In reality, notwithstanding the changes introduced into the comitia, the bearing of which is difficult to explain, the nobility preserved its preponderance, and the habit of addressing the people only after having taken the sense of the Senate, was still persisted in.[618] The Roman government, always aristocratic, became more oppressive in proportion as the State increased in extent, and it lost in influence what the people of Italy gained in intelligence and in legitimate aspirations towards a better future.
Besides, ever since the beginning of the Republic, it had harboured in its breast two opposite parties, the one seeking to extend, the other to restrict, the rights of the people. When the first came into power, all the liberal laws of the past were restored to force; when the second came in, these laws were evaded. Thus we see now the law Valeria, which consecrates appeal to the people, thrice revived; now the law interdicting the re-election of the consuls before an interval of ten years, promulgated by Genucius in 412,[619] and immediately abandoned, renewed in 603, and subsequently restored by Sylla; now the law which threw the freedmen into the urban tribes, in order to annul their vote, revived at three different epochs;[620] now the measures against solicitation, against exactions, against usury, continually put into force; and finally, the right of election to the sacerdotal office by turn, refused or granted to the people.[621] By the Portian laws of 557 and 559, it was forbidden to strike with rods, or put to death, a Roman citizen, before the people had pronounced upon his doom. And yet Scipio Æmilianus, to evade this law, caused his auxiliaries to be beaten with sticks and his soldiers with vine-stalks.[622] At the beginning of the seventh century, the principle of secret voting was admitted in all elections; in 615, in the elections of the magistrates; in 617, for the decision of the people in judicial condemnations; in 623, in the votes on proposals for laws. Finally, by the institution of permanent tribunals (_quæstiones perpetuæ_), established from 605, it was sought to remedy the spoliation of the provinces; but these institutions, successively adopted or abandoned, could not heal the ills of society. The manly virtues of an intelligent aristocracy had until then maintained the Republic in a state of concord and greatness; its vices were soon to shake it to its foundations.