The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-08-23

on Certain Tendencies in the United
 States To-duy.
 (Condensed in the New York Evening
 Post from Lecture on "Cicero, Clo-
 dius and Milo" Delivered Before the
 Harvard Classical Club)
 The decline and fall of the Roman
 republic is, perhaps, the most instruc-
 tive chapter in the annals of ancient
 times, since it shows how great peo-
 pie became a prey to their own vices
 and follies, and after conquering the
 world surrendered their liberty to men : whom they had armed to take away the
 liberty of others.
 The historian Sallust dates the decline
 of the republic from the destruction of
 Carthage, from which time" he says,
 ''the manners of our forefathers degen- erated, not as before, gradually, but
 with the downward rush Of a torrent" :"
 Having no longer rival that she need fear, Rome began to plunder the prov
 inces not merely by a tribute of fixed amount, but by military governors practically irresponsible, who were chiefly engaged in robbling the provin- cials and dividing the plunder with those who were able to shield them from punishment The whole industri- al system rested on slavery, which was robbery in more aggravated form. Three or four hundred men ruled the world in this manner. Their capacities grew with what they fed on, and since the amount of plunder was not unlimi- ted they fell to quarreling over it. The quarrels of the nobles gave opportuni- ties to demagogues to rise by espousing the interests of the plebs. Such a con- dition was sure to produce the gang, and the boss in due time. Factions, and street fighting to control the eec- tions, came on apace, and these con- tests widened into civil wars, proscrip- tions, confiscation and government by terror, until monarchy became the least evil of the time. Beginning with the murder of Tiberius Gracchus, the Ro- man republic, like an uneasy volcano began to spout fire and mud, and the eruptions continued until the whole mass fell inward. About one hundred years were filled with this long agony.
 The republic was a government by great families bestriding a mass of in- feriors who were yet free citizens pos Sessed of intelligence, bravery and num- bers, cruelty oppressed, smarting under the sense of inferiority and ever strug gling to get greater share of the gov ernment and the emoluments thereof. Cicero in his De Officis Cii. 21) quotes saying of the tribune Marcius Philippus in the year 104, that there were not two thousand Roman citizens who pos sessed any property. This was, doubt less, an eXaggeration.
 Let us imagine, if we can, the Ameri- can republic governed at New York by popular assembly, meeting in Union Square and passing laws at the instiga- ton of anybody who could command the hearing of mob swayed by passion and restrained only by the social influ- ence or the bribes of few hundred rich, but unprincipled men. This was the kind of government that Rome had in the time of the Gracchi. It went from bad to worse, and from one revo- lution to another, the revolutions being tempered by assassination. Battles /, were fought in the streets over laws for the settlement of colonies, and for dis tributions of corn to the poor. On a measure of the former kind, proposed by the tribune Saturninus, two battles
  nus perished as the Gracchi had per ished before him.
 EVIDENCES OF CORRUPTION.
 We, looking backward, can see that Roman liberty was now dying, although Sulla had not yet marched his legions into the city. The sabre, as Mommsen observes had not yet interfered with the constitutional rule of the bludgeon, 1,,,+ +, 1a tool always displaces an inferior one sooner or later The republic was | thoroughly corrupt. Uncomfortable | forces had been let loose within it. The good men upon whose united strength | Cicero relied to save the state were | hurried along with the torrent. Their | influence was slight, except in the pres ence of some startling crime like the | conspiracy of Catiline, or some over- mastering peril like the approach of the Cimbri and Teutones from the north. | As soon as the immediate danger was past the oligarchy returned to their plundering and their unbridled vices, the mob to their gladiatorial shows, their street fights, and the selling of | their votes in the elections.
 Into this kind of society Marcus Tu- Illus Cicero was born in the year 106 B. C., and Julius Caesar was born four years later. We shall see with what l different eyes these two men looked upon the world in which their lot was cast. When they had arrived at years of responsibility Sulla was dictator of Rome, and monarch of the world. He had reached this place without the mo- tive of personal ambition. An aristo- crat, a dilettante, voluptuary, not naturally cruel, but a man without scruples and of iron will, Sulla found himself in this weltering mass. He came to the front because he was the ablest soldier of his day.
 The Roman army was no longer com posed of Roman burgesses having homes to return to at the end Of cam paign. It consisted of the proletariate of Italy and of recruits from Gaul Spain, Africa and other provinces: men whose sole motive in fighting was pay and plunder. On the first occasion when a hostile Roman army took pos session of Rome itself, the question in dispute was whether Marius or Sulla should have command of the war against Mithridat teS. The command had been given in the regular way to Sulla; and he Was preparing to march