In every government, an object of the last importance to the peace and
welfare of society is the morals of the people; and in proportion as a
community is enlarged by propagation, or the accession of a multitude of
new members, a more strict attention is requisite to guard against that
dissolution of manners to which a crowded and extensive capital has a
natural tendency. Of this (57) the Romans became sensible in the growing
state of the Republic. In the year of the City 312, two magistrates were
first created for taking an account of the number of the people, and the
value of their estates; and soon after, they were invested with the
authority not only of inspecting the morals of individuals, but of
inflicting public censure for any licentiousness of conduct, or violation
of decency. Thus both the civil and religious institutions concurred to
restrain the people within the bounds of good order and obedience to the
laws; at the same time that the frugal life of the ancient Romans proved
a strong security against those vices which operate most effectually
towards sapping the foundations of a state.

But in the time of Julius Caesar the barriers of public liberty were
become too weak to restrain the audacious efforts of ambitious and
desperate men. The veneration for the constitution, usually a powerful
check to treasonable designs, had been lately violated by the usurpations
of Marius and Sylla. The salutary terrors of religion no longer
predominated over the consciences of men. The shame of public censure
was extinguished in general depravity. An eminent historian, who lived
at that time, informs us, that venality universally prevailed amongst the
Romans; and a writer who flourished soon after, observes, that luxury and
dissipation had encumbered almost all so much with debt, that they beheld
with a degree of complacency the prospect of civil war and confusion.

The extreme degree of profligacy at which the Romans were now arrived is