" of
which an English translation was issued as early as 1751.]

But after the legions had passed the Alps and crossed the sea, the
soldiers whom the Romans had been obliged to leave during several
campaigns in the countries they were subduing, lost insensibly that
genius and turn of mind which characterized a Roman citizen; and the
generals having armies and kingdoms at their disposal were sensible of
their own strength, and would no longer obey.

The soldiers therefore began to acknowledge no superior but their
general; to found their hopes on him only, and to view the city as
from a great distance: they were no longer the soldiers of the
republic, but of Sulla, of Marius, of Pompey, and of Caesar. The Romans
could no longer tell whether the person who headed an army in a
province was their general or their enemy.

So long as the people of Rome were corrupted by their tribunes only,
on whom they could bestow nothing but their power, the Senate could
easily defend themselves, because they acted consistently and with one
regular tenor, whereas the common people were continually shifting
from the extremes of fury to the extremes of cowardice; but when they
were enabled to invest their favorites with a formidable exterior
authority, the whole wisdom of the Senate was baffled, and the
commonwealth was undone.

The reason why free states are not so permanent as other forms of
government is because the misfortunes and successes which happen to
them generally occasion the loss of liberty; whereas the successes and
misfortunes of an arbitrary government contribute equally to the
enslaving of the people. A wise republic ought not to run any hazard
which may expose it to good or ill fortune; the only happiness the
several individuals of it should aspire after is to give perpetuity to
their state.

If the unbounded extent of the Roman empire proved the ruin of the
republic, the vast compass of the city was no less fatal to it.

The Romans had subdued the whole universe by the assistance of the
nations of Italy, on whom they had bestowed various privileges at
different times. Most of those nations did not at first set any great
value on the freedom of the city of Rome, and some chose rather to
preserve their ancient usages; but when this privilege became that of
universal sovereignty--when a man who was not a Roman citizen was
considered as nothing, and with this title was everything--the people
of Italy resolved either to