By
this means the ascendancy of the patrician families was, for a certain
period, as regular as it could be made by the avowed maxims of aristocracy:
but the higher offices of state being gradually shared by plebeians, the
effects of former distinctions were prevented or weakened. The laws that
were made to adjust the pretensions of different orders were easily eluded.
The populace became a faction, and their alliance was the surest road to
dominion. Clodius, by a pretended adoption into a plebeian family, was
qualified to become tribune of the people; and Caesar, by espousing the
cause of this faction, made his way to usurpation and tyranny.
In such fleeting and transient scenes, forms of government are only modes
of proceeding, in, which successive ages differ from one another. Faction
is ever ready to seize all occasional advantages; and mankind, when in
hazard from any party, seldom find a better protection than that of its
rival. Cato united with Pompey in opposition to Caesar, and guarded against
nothing so much as that reconciliation of parties, which was in effect to
be a combination of different leaders against the freedom of the republic.
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