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A39837
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The imperfection of most governments taken out of the Epitomy of the Roman history written by Lucius Annæus Florus : where it plainly appears that the liberty of the most flourishing common-wealth of the Romans destroyed written by Roger Trusty.; Epitomae de Tito Livio bellorum omnium annorum DCC libri II. English. Selections
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Florus, Lucius Annaeus.; Trusty, Roger.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing F1381A; ESTC R3394
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7,338
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6
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THE IMPERFECTION Of most Governments Taken out of the EPITOMY of the ROMAN HISTORY Written by Lucius Annaeus Florus Where it plainly appears that the Liberty of the most Flourishing Common-wealth of the Romans destroyed all Property and its own Government turned to Levelling Discord and Confusion till it brought in the Government it most hated With a Reason or two added why all Great and Free Commonwealths will be subject to the same Written by Roger Trusty To all my Country Men whose only Love of their Nation inclines them to a Commonwealth I would but shew all Powers equally frail GENTLEMEN I Had no Design to cry down Liberty nor disparage Common-wealths I love no coercive power in Church or State more than is necessary for preservation of the publick â—eace but I presume you would not incline your Nation in Blood and Rapine on a mistake â—specially when the Major part of our own three Kingdoms are like to differ from you and â—wo hundred thousand French in Arms are neglecting their other advantages on Christenâ—ome to incorporate themselves in your Common wealth by yoar own Fire-sides with your â—ives and Daughters when you Rebel I suppose those Jealousies will be more insupportaâ—le to you than your present ones when you have Read here what you may find in Florus 〈◊〉 not I must conclude you are more inclined to bring in Popery than I could wish you for â—our supposed unerring Government I would have many Readers and therefore have contracted a Subject fit for a â—ollume to a two-peny Pamphlet which can be but half an hours trouble to any man if â—â—y endeavours do you and my Contry a kindness I have the only End aimed at by Your humble Servant Roger Trusty IT is unknown to no Body that reads Historys that the Romans had seven Kings in their Infancy most of them Elected and six of them good Princes who did cultivate them with Religion Virtue Arts and Arms according to their Mode but the seventh was a Usurper Tarquin the Proud a Man naturally Wicked but necessitated by his Usurpation to continue a Tyrant because all Persons or Powers must maintain such Wrongs by a standng Army which turns the best Gover-ments that can be to the worst But his Own and his Wives insupportable Humor with his Sons barbarous Rape of the fair and vertuous Lus â—coelia gave the icensed Romans a unanimous Courage to revolt from him and Kingly Government together But though their attempts was successful it was hardly maintained against their Neighbours the Latins and especially against Pâ—rsenna King of the Hetourians who Armed for Tarquin though they could find nothing Lovely in him because they did not like such a president for deposing of Kings But the Romans I find in the ninth Chapter and first Book of Florus did submit to the Model and Persons of Brutus and Colla-tine the Husband of Lucretia whom they first obeyed as Consuls or Annual Kings but the People removed Collatine because aliened to Tarquin and chose Valerius Publicola in his place in whose Consulship it was ordained that there should be Appeals from the Sentences of the Consuls to the People which made the Government an absolute Common wealth and this seemed alasting Foundation of Liberty and their continual Wars with their Neighbours kept them at Unity longer than so great a Common-wealth could otherwise have been for the Grecian and Italian Common-wealths subsisted by their smalness Venice is an Aristocracy or Tyranny of the Nobility and the States of Holland are so little accountable to their People and so great Taxers even of Travellers on their necessary occasions that they may be called so too But to come to the sirstr Buds of disorders in the only considerable Common-wealth that ever was except the Carthaginian Florus his first Book and two and twentieth Chapter begins with their Armies who presuming on Liberty stoned their General Posthumus for disappointing them of a Booty he had promised and another time when they might have vanquished the Enemy under their General Apius Claudius they refused to Fight And in the same Chapter is mentioned that one Valeron having animated the People against their Consul they all refused to be involved for Souldiers and broke the Rods carried before the Consul as well as his Commands this Chapter farther says that they grew so hardy as to send into Banishment the most excellent of the nobility whom they believed opposite to their unbridled desires and Coriolanus would have obliged them to till the Earth for which they banished him but he was able to besiege Rome for this and had Ruin'd their Government had not Intercession prevailed Camillius was also banished by them because they pretended that he had not made an equal partition of the spoils of the Veens Conquered by him between the Army and People Though this gallant and honest man Armed afterward at their intercession against the Gauls possest at Rome and sav'd them from Ruine by beating them out and then without Revenge lived and died peaceably amongst them And this pregnant Chapter tells us of two vehement Contests between the Senate and People which Past the Bounds of Reason and Equity for the Sedition was so great that the People abandoned their Houses and threatned to make a Desart of the Town and bury it in its Ruines The three and twentieth Chapter first Book mentions a Civil discord but on a more Just occasion against Usurers which was appeased by an Oration The four and twentieth Chapter and first Book tells us of an other Sedition caused by the Usurpation of the Decemury chief Citizens Commanded by the people to contract the Greek Laws into twelve Tables but these Favorites of the people were so insolent when they had executed their Commission to continue their Authority and so far to Tyrannise that Appius one of their number attempted to Ravish a noble Maid procur'd an unjust Sentence to pass against her and caused her to be draged as a Slave till her Father Virginius tore her from them killed her in the Street and than found a party strong enough to subdue and imprison that insolent Magistrate The twentieth fifth Chapter first Book mentions a Sedition of the people about Marriage into the Familys of Senators and Cammilus tribune of the people was the Author of that Tumult The twenty sixth Chapter first Book mentions another Commotion about admittance to Dignities equally with the Nobles which they extorted from the Senate They caused Spurius Cassius to be Murdered on a bare suspition of affecting Royalty They also destroyed Metius on the same distrust meerly for being liberal to themselves And for Manlius who had defended the Capital for them against the Gaules they for a punishment of his Pride precipitated from the top of the Rock which he had preferved as the last stake of his ingrateful People and these were the Diseases of this infant Commonwealth all in the first Book of Florus whilst Italy was scarce yet sebdued But
all this while the Comunes being Warlike well Arm'd and disciplined prospered in their VVars though slowly for they were five hundred years in subduing Italy But their next quarel being with the great Cathaginian Common-VVealth those effiminate Affricans were worsted by Sea and Land and justled out of Sicily Sardinia and almost all Spain till the great Hannibal General of the Carthaginians entertaining great Bodys of Gaules and Spanish Horse beat them in four set Battails and had ruin'd them if his factious Common-wealth had not retarded his supplys to pursue his Victory whilst the Romans were dejected but they recovered and beat his supplys and then invading Affrick Hannibal was forced to ship his Foot and leave his Victorious Horse and was beaten in Affrick and Carthage subdued So that Affrica fell into their Hands as easily as the Effeminate Asiatiques afterwards did so that the Conquest of those two parts of the World in two hundred years with some pieces in Europe was not so strange as Florus would have it for Alexander the great did almost the same in ten years But I pretend not to VVrite their History but only for a Hint that there great VVars kept the more united at Home For to return to my Undertaking the thirteenth Chapter of the third Book of Florus tells us plainly that the Power of the Tribunes of the People was the sourse and cause of the Seditions of the Multitude For they being well designed as Orators and Advocates for their Preservation sought to increase their Authority and Favour by proposing plausible Laws in their behalf 1. As for the dividing of Lands and Inheritances for their Use 2. The giving away Corn to the poorer Citizens 3. And the reducing of Causes Publick and Private to their Judicature All these had shews of Justice for what could seem more equitable then that the People slould recover their Original Rights from the incroachment of the Senators And that they injoying the Government of Provinces the Knights might sustain their Dignities by the Profits of Causes and Judgments yet these things says my Author tended to the Ruin of the Common-Wealth for it seems that the transferring the Judicature soon brought the Publick Tribute or Revenue to nothing and the charging the Corn of the Poor on the publick Treasure and wasted that also and as Florus sayeth weakned the very Nerves of the Common-Wealth and how says he could one give back to the People their ancient Lands without Ruining those who possest them and who were a part of the People also and injoyed those Lands as the Inheritances of their Ancestors by proscription of time And now the fourteenth Chapter of the third Book tells us of Tiberius Bracchus an eioquent and graceful Tribune of the People who mounted the Tribunal and proposed a Law to pass by Votes of the People for taking away Lands from the owners and by three Comissioners than appointed to give them to such Levellers as most wanted them the Nobility the owners and some of his Fellow Tribunes opposed him But he caus'd Eneus Octaivus his Fellow Tribune to be thrown of the Tribunal threatned him with Death and made him quit his Office but though he prevailed then He Mounted another day and then the Nobility and Owners fell to Blows with him made him flye to the Capital where touching his Head to move the People to defend him one Scipio Nasica animated the people against him with pretence that he wanted a Diadem upon which supposition his expected Protectors turned his immediate destroyers for they gave him no Audience before they killed him In the next Chapter his Brother Caius Gracchus pursued the same hopes with larger promises to the People But one of the Tribunes opposed him and they first killed his Friends and the Consul Opinius Massacred him The sixteenth Chapter third Book tells us that notwithstanding this Aprielus Saturninus supported by the General Marius always an Enemy of the Nobility renewed the quarrel of the Gracchi Marius caused Annius the Compeditor of Saturninus to be publickly Murdered they forcibly substituted a new Tribune another Gracchus a mean Man but Saturninus forced the Senate to pass the Laws of the Gracchi threatning to deprive the Opposers the use of Fire and Water This Saturninus continued his Usurpation three years was chosen Consul caused his Collogue Caius Memmius to be Murdered to substitute one Glaucias an instrument of his Civility in his Room but the Senate at last was so Ivitated at his Outrages and Marius forsaking him and Bandying against him their Forces made him flye to the Capitol but beleaguering him there and cutting off his Water he Capitulated Submitted and seemed Penitent and was admitted into the Senate House where the people whose Laws he had asserted broke in forcibly upon him and after an assault with Cudgels and other Instruments of Indignation they Tore and Cut him to pieces But at last the Laws of the Gracchi were established by new Violencies the power of the Senate abated and that of the Knights so exalted tbat they had the Lives and Fortunes of the Senate People and Nobility at their despose seized the publick Revenues and all Italy fell into Rebellion which the Romans at last with much Blood and hazard quenched as appears in the 17th and 18th Chapters of the third Book and it also appears tbat these Divisions between Senate and Tribunes gave Courage to the very Slaves to Rebel against their Masters in the following Chapter And this was the natural Corruption and club-Club-Law of this Free-Comman-wealth mixt Government where my Lords the People could never agree with their own Trustees longer than their Common Enemies obliged them but these were the beginnings of their Miseries the People had Liberty and a free Common-wealth was designed to preserve property but I fear that in any great Kingdome or Empire it does necessarily destroy it For now in the 21 Chapter of the third Book of Florus Marius a Popular General of high Reputation assisted by Sulpitious the Tribune of the People procured his own Election by them to go fight Mitridates though Sylla had the Commission and was succesfully imployed before him by the general Votes of the Senate But Sylla not able to indure this injury returns with his Army and enters Rome with Fire and Sword Slaughters and proâ—ribes Marius his Party and he hardly escaped in the Disguise of a Slave But Cinna and Octavius being Consuls they divided one being for Marius and his Party and the other for Sylla and the Senate but though both were Arm'd Cinna was chaced away to the banished But Marius returning out of Africk his Party flocked to him breaks open Prisons and making up an Army Marches to Ostia and sacks it his Army then enters Rome and spilt more Blood says my Author of the Senators and chief of the Citizens than was shed at the Sack of Carthage But Sylla returns again by long Marches from Asia was again Victorious Young Marius