self to order the institution of a civil process, yet the complaints
of poor men and foreigners against powerful members of the ruling
aristocracy--submitted to judges and jurymen far remote from the scene
and, if not involved in the like guilt, at least belonging to the same
order as the accused--could from the first only reckon on success in
the event of the wrong being clear and crying; and to complain in vain
was almost certain destruction. The aggrieved no doubt found a sort
of support in the hereditary relations of clientship, which the
subject cities and provinces entered into with their conquerors and
other Romans brought into close contact with them. The Spanish
governors felt that no one could with impunity maltreat clients of
Cato; and the circumstance that the representatives of the three
nations conquered by Paullus--the Spaniards, Ligurians, and
Macedonians--would not forgo the privilege of carrying his bier to the
funeral pile, was the noblest dirge in honour of that noble man. But
not only did this special protection give the Greeks opportunity to
display in Rome all their talent for abasing themselves in presence of
their masters, and to demoralize even those masters by their ready
servility--the decrees of the Syracusans in honour of Marcellus, after
he had destroyed and plundered their city and they had complained of
his conduct in these respects to the senate in vain, form one of the
most scandalous pages in the far from honourable annals of Syracuse
--but, in connection with the already dangerous family-politics, this
patronage on the part of great houses had also its politically
perilous side. In this way the result perhaps was that the Roman
magistrates in some degree feared the gods and the senate, and for
the most part were moderate in their plundering; but they plundered
withal, and did so with impunity, if they but observed such
moderation. The mischievous rule became established, that in the case
of minor exactions and moderate violence the Roman magistrate acted in
some measure within his sphere and was in law exempt from punishment,
so that those who were aggrieved had to keep silence; and from this
rule succeeding ages did not fail to draw the fatal consequences.
Nevertheless, even though the tribunals had been as strict as they
were lax, the liability to a judicial reckoning could only check
the worst evils. The true security for a good administration lay
in a strict and uniform supe