By the way, it has been a maxim with legislators not to give checks to the present superstition, but to make the best use of it, as that which is always the most powerful with the people;otherwise, though Plutarch, being a priest, was interested in the cause, there is nothing plainer than Cicero, in his book "De Divinatione" has made it, that there was never any such thing as an oracle, except in the cunning of the priests. But to be civil to the author, the god answered to Lycurgus that his policy was exquisite, and that his city, holding to the strict observation of his form of government, should attain to the height of fame and glory. Which oracle Lycurgus causing to be written, failed not of transmitting to his Lacedaemon. This done, that his citizens might be forever inviolably bound by their oath, that they would alter nothing till his return, he took so firm a resolution to die in the place, that from thenceforward, receiving no manner of food, he soon after performed it accordingly. Nor was he deceived in the consequence; for his city became the first in glory and excellency of government in the whole world. And so much for Lycurgus, according to Plutarch.
My Lord Archon, when he beheld not only the rapture of motion, but of joy and harmony, into which his spheres (without any manner of obstruction or interfering, but as if it had been naturally) were cast, conceived not less of exultation in his spirit; but saw no more necessity or reason why he should administer an oath to the Senate and the people that they would observe his institutions, than to a man in perfect health and felicity of constitution that he would not kill himself.
Nevertheless whereas Christianity, though it forbids violent hands, consists no less in self-denial than any other religion, he resolved that all unreasonable desires should die upon the spot; to which end that no manner of food might be left to ambition, he entered into the Senate with a unanimous applause, and having spoken of his government as Lycurgus did when he assembled the people, he abdicated the magistracy of Archon. The Senate, as struck with astonishment, continued silent, men upon so sudden an accident being altogether unprovided of what to say;till the Archon withdrawing, and being almost at the door, divers of the knights flew from their places, offering as it were to lay violent hands on him, while he escaping, left the Senate with the tears in their eyes, of children that had lost their father and to rid himself of all further importunity, retired to a country house of his, being remote, and very private, insomuch that no man could tell for some time what was become of him.
Thus the law-maker happened to be the first object and reflection of the law made; for as liberty of all things is the most welcome to a people, so is there nothing more abhorrent from their nature than ingratitude. We, accusing the Roman people of this crime against some of their greatest benefactors, as Camillus, heap mistake upon mistake; for being not so competent judges of what belongs to liberty as they were, we take upon us to be more competent judges of virtue. And whereas virtue, for being a vulgar thing among them, was of no less rate than jewels are with such as wear the most, we are selling this precious stone, which we have ignorantly raked out of the Roman ruins, at such a rate as the Switzers did that which they took in the baggage of Charles of Burgundy. For that Camillus had stood more firm against the ruin of Rome than her capitol, was acknowledged;but on the other side, that he stood as firm for the patricians against the liberty of the people, was as plain; wherefore he never wanted those of the people that would die at his foot in the field, nor that would withstand him to his beard in the city.
An example in which they that think Camillus had wrong, neither do themselves right, nor the people of Rome; who in this signify no less than that they had a scorn of slavery beyond the fear of ruin, which is the height of magnanimity.
The like might be shown by other examples objected against this and other popular governments, as in the banishment of Aristides the Just from Athens, by the ostracism, which, first, was no punishment, nor ever understood for so much as a disparagement; but tended only to the security of the commonwealth, through the removal of a citizen (whose riches or power with a party was suspected) out of harm's way for the space of ten years, neither to the diminution of his estate or honor.
And next, though the virtue of Aristides might in itself be unquestioned, yet for him under the name of the Just to become universal umpire of the people in all cases, even to the neglect of the legal ways and orders of the commonwealth, approached so much to the prince, that the Athenians, doing Aristides no wrong, did their government no more than right in removing him; which therefore is not so probable to have come to pass, as Plutarch presumes, through the envy of Themistocles, seeing Aristides was far more popular than Themistocles, who soon after took the same walk upon a worse occasion. Wherefore as Machiavel, for anything since alleged, has. irrefragably proved that popular governments are of all others the least ungrateful, so the obscurity, I say, into which my Lord Archon had now withdrawn himself caused a universal sadness and clouds in the minds of men upon the glory of his rising commonwealth.
