notable exception. To one of the unsuccessful champions of political liberty sympathy has seldom been denied. Cicero was a hum

e. The Roman and the senator could never surrender his prerogative of liberty or frankly acknowledge the drab merits of absolut

s every party and every leader professed to be defending the cause of liberty and of peace. Those ideals were incompatible. Whe

more recently claimed to be asserting the rights of the tribunes, the liberty of the Roman People. He was not mistaken. Yet he

uld survive if its members refused to abide by the rules, to respect ‘ liberty and the laws’. To his contemporaries, Marcus Br

inus opened the fray with the battle-cry of Caesar’s dignitas and the liberty of the Roman People. 5 In his dispatches Caesar d

oman State, They had no further plans the tyrant was slain, therefore liberty was restored. A lull followed and bewilderment.

Though Rome and the army were degenerate and Caesarian, respect for liberty , for tradition, and for the constitution might ap

r was dead, regretted by many, but not to be avenged; an assertion of liberty had been answered by the Caesarian leaders with c

rds, old and new, with their insistence upon civic virtue or personal liberty , accorded a wide indulgence. The failings of Anto

unced. 2 The lust for power ends in tyranny, which is the negation of liberty , the laws and of all civilized life. 3 So much fo

s last and courageous battle for what he believed to be the Republic, liberty and the laws against the forces of anarchy or des

recalled not Caesar only but Lepidus and armies raised in the name of liberty , the deeds of Pompeius, and a Brutus besieged at

he deceitful assertions of a party who claimed to be the champions of liberty and the laws, of peace and legitimate government.

exploiting the constitution in its own interests. Hence the appeal to liberty . It was on this plea that the young Pompeius rais

their lives for intriguers such as Plancus or Lepidus, still less for liberty and the constitution, empty names. Roman discipli

crown and consecration to any process of violence and usurpation. But liberty , the laws and the constitution were NotesPage=&

nvoking on the side of insurgents the authority of the Senate and the liberty of the People. Cicero spoke before the People as

State. Henceforth nothing but a contest of despots over the corpse of liberty . The men who fell at Philippi fought for a princi

y degenerated were fought at the expense of Italy. Denied justice and liberty , Italy rose against Rome for the last time. It wa

ctor of Philippi was overwhelming. On the other side, they championed liberty and the rights of the dispossessed again not with

y senators and Roman knights of distinction had espoused the cause of liberty and the protection of their own estates. It may b

ten against the Triumvirs. Their iron rule in Italy, while it crushed liberty , had at least maintained a semblance of peace in

nst Antonius, winning for personal domination the name and pretext of liberty . The young military leader awoke to a new confi

he gifted and eloquent Messalla, ‘fulgentissimus iuvenis’, fought for liberty at Philippi and was proud of it. He then followed

t ascension and domination of Pompeius, that was the end of political liberty . Sallustius studied and imitated the classic do

though it were not fettered to the policy of a military despot. To liberty itself the Republic was now recalled, bewildered

ould be a brave man, or a very foolish one, who asserted the cause of liberty anywhere in the vicinity of Calvisius Sabinus or

t despotism was already there and war inevitable. In a restoration of liberty no man could believe any more. Yet if the coming

d of the factions, compacts and wars of the last thirty years, though liberty perished, peace might be achieved. It was worth i

has triumphed in civil war, it claims to have asserted the ideals of liberty and concord. Peace was a tangible blessing. For a

er the immediate rule of Octavianus presented a fair show of restored liberty , and resigned nothing of value. Ostensible modera

s of the supreme magistrates, Augustus and Agrippa. The transition to liberty was carefully safeguarded. It is an entertainin

with Caesar. Sick of words and detesting the champions of oligarchic liberty , the peoples of the Marsi, the Marrucini and the

other, his grandfather had helped Ti. Claudius Nero in the fight for liberty during the Bellum Perusinum and committed suicide

If Augustus wished his rule to retain the semblance of constitutional liberty , with free elections and free debate in the Senat

of a prosperous age, based upon the convenient dogma that it retained liberty while discarding licence and achieved order witho

ely the publication of books extolling Cato, the martyr of Republican liberty . The praise or blame of the dead rather than the

stus’ policy or an unequivocal testimony to the restoration of public liberty ; but it does not follow that the poets and histor

ey had known worse, and could see no prospect of a successful war for liberty against the legions and colonies of Rome. In orig

s nobis male facere possit. ’ PageBook=>482 These outbursts of liberty flattered their authors without alarming the gove

ook up arms against the State. But Cato was worshipped as a martyr of liberty . Augustus conceived a genial device for thwarting

ied the history of Republican Rome. That was not the worst. Political liberty had to go, for the sake of the Commonwealth. But

bertas was destroyed when Virtus was shattered at Philippi. Political liberty , it could be maintained, was doomed if not dead l

the Roman People. There is something more important than political liberty ; and political rights are a means, not an end in

bid and restless, with noble qualities as well as evil the strife for liberty , glory or domination. 1 Empire, wealth and indivi

ence could not have the advantage both ways, enjoying both Republican liberty and the benefits of an ordered state. Nor was the

ibertas in Roman thought and usage had never quite meant unrestricted liberty ; and the ideal which the word now embodied was th

e, there must surely be a middle path between the extremes of ruinous liberty and degrading servility. A sensible man could fin

dria paid public observance to him who was the author of their lives, liberty and prosperity. 8 NotesPage=>519 1 Augustu

516 ff.; as the best form of government, 516, 518; as a guarantee of liberty , 518; and concord, 9, 263, 519. Money, power of