painting were formed among themselves. They decorated their porticos and
their saloons with the plunder of the East. The stage was never more than
an artificial taste with them; their delight was the delight of
barbarians, in spectacles, in athletic exercises, in horse-races and
chariot-races, in the combats of wild animals in the circus, combats of
men with beasts on choice occasions, and, as a rare excitement, in fights
between men and men, when select slaves trained as gladiators were matched
in pairs to kill each other. Moral habits are all-sufficient while they
last; but with rude strong natures they are but chains which hold the
passions prisoners. Let the chain break, and the released brute is but the
more powerful for evil from the force which his constitution has
inherited. Money! the cry was still money!--money was the one thought from
the highest senator to the poorest wretch who sold his vote in the
Comitia. For money judges gave unjust decrees and juries gave corrupt
verdicts. Governors held their provinces for one, two, or three years;
they went out bankrupt from extravagance, they returned with millions for
fresh riot. To obtain a province was the first ambition of a Roman noble.
The road to it lay through the praetorship and the consulship; these
offices, therefore, became the prizes of the State; and being in the gift
of the people, they were sought after by means which demoralized alike the
givers and the receivers. The elections were managed by clubs and
coteries; and, except on occasions of national danger or political
excitement, those who spent most freely were most certain of success.

Under these conditions the chief powers in the Commonwealth necessarily
centred in the rich. There was no longer an aristocracy of birth, still
less of virtue. The patrician families had the start in the race. Great
names and great possessions came to them by inheritance. But the door of
promotion was open to all who had the golden key. The great commoners
bought their way into the magistracies. From the magistracies they passed