OF THE KOMAN EMPIRE 263 diction was divided between two annual magistrates ; the senate continued to exercise the powers of administration and counsel ; and the legislative authority was distributed in the assemblies of the people by a well-proportioned scale of property and service. Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war ; the will of the community was absolute ; the rights of individuals were sacred ; one hundred and thirty thousand citizens were armed for defence or conquest ; and a band of robbers and outlaws was moulded into a nation, deserving of freedom and ambitious of glory.*^ When the sovereignty of the Greek emperors was extinguished, the ruins of Rome presented the sad image of depopulation and decay ; her slavery was an habit, her liberty an accident : the effect of superstition, and the object of her own amazement and terror. The last vestige of the substance, or even the forms, of the constitution was obliterated from the practice and memory of the Romans ; and they were devoid of knowledge, or virtue, again to build the fabric of a common- wealth. Their scanty remnant, the offspring of slaves and strangers, was despicable in the eyes of the victorious bar- barians. As often as the Franks or Lombards expressed their most bitter contempt of a foe, they called him a Roman ; "and in this name," says the bishop Liutprand, "we include whatever is base, whatever is cowardly, whatever is perfidious, the ex- tremes of avarice and luxury, and every vice that can prostitute the dignity of human nature ".^* By the necessity of their situation, the inhabitants of Rome were cast into the rough model of a republican government ; they were compelled to elect some judges in peace, and some leaders in war ; the nobles assembled to deliberate, and their resolves could not be executed without the union and consent of the multitude. The style of the Roman senate and people was revived,^^ but the
- -*On the extent, population, &c. of the Roman kingdom, the reader may peruse,
with pleasure, the Discours Prelitninaire to the R^publique Romaine of M. de Beaufort (tom. i.), who will not be accused of too much credulity for the early ages of Rome. '^*Qios (Roma/ios) nos, Longobardi scilicet, Saxones, Franci, Lotharingi, Ba- goarii, Suevi, Burgundiones, tanto dedignamur ut inimicos nostros commoti nil aliud contumeliarum nisi Romane dicamus ; hoc solo, id est Romanorum nomine, quicquid ignobililatis, quicquid timiditatis, quicquid avaritias, quicquid luxurice, quicquid mendacii, immo quicquid vitiorum est comprehendentes (Liutprand, in Legal, [c. 12] Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 481). For the sins of Cato or Tully, Minos might have imposed as a fit penance the daily perusal of this barbarous passage. ^^Pipino regi Francorum [et patricio Romanorum], omnis senatus, atque uni- versa populi generalitas a Deo servatne Romanas lu-bis. Codex Carolin. epist. 36,
