CHAP. XIV.: How the smallest Change of the Constitution is attended with the Ruin of its Principles.

ARISTOTLE mentions the city of Carthage as a well regulated republic. Polybius tells us, About a hundred years after. ^†271 that there was this inconvenience, at Carthage, in the second Punic war, that the senate had lost almost all their authority. We are informed, by Livy, that, when Hannibal returned to Carthage, he found that the magistrates and the principal citizens had abused their power, and converted the public revenues to their private emolument. The virtue, therefore, of the magistrates, and the authority of the senate, both fell at the same time; and all was owing to the same cause.

Every one knows the wonderful effects of the censorship among the Romans. There was a time when it grew burdensome; but still it was supported, because there was more luxury than corruption. Claudius See book 11th, chap. 12th. ^†272 weakened its authority; by which means the corruption became greater than the luxury, and the censorship dwindled away of itself. See Dio, book 38. Cicero’s life in Plutarch, Cicero to Atticus, book 4th, letter 10 and 15. Asconius on Cicero de divinatione. ^†273 After various interruptions and resumptions, it was entirely laid aside till it became altogether useless; that is, till the reigns of Augustus and Claudius.