An independence almost absolute in the exercise of command contributed further to the development of the faculties. At the present day, our constitutional habits have raised distrust towards power into a principle; at Rome, trust was the principle. In our modern societies, the depositary of any authority whatever is always under the restraint of powerful bonds; he obeys a precise law, a minutely detailed rule, a superior. The Roman, on the contrary, abandoned to his own sole responsibility, felt himself free from all shackles; he commanded as master within the sphere of his attributes. The counterpoise of this independence was the short duration of his office, and the right, given to every man, of accusing each magistrate at the end of it. The preponderance of the high class, then, rested upon a legitimate superiority, and this class, besides, knew how to work to its advantage the popular passions. They desired liberty only for themselves, but they knew how to make the image glitter in the eyes of the multitude, and the name of the people was always associated with the decrees of the Senate. Proud of having contributed to the overthrow of the power of one individual, they took care to cherish among the masses the imaginary fear of the return of kingly power. In their hands the _hate of tyrants_ will become a weapon to be dreaded by all who shall seek to raise themselves above their fellows, either by threatening their privileges, or by acquiring too much popularity by their acts of benevolence. Thus, under the pretext, renewed incessantly, of aspiring to kingly power, fell the consul Spurius Cassius, in 269, because he had presented the first agrarian law; Spurius Melius, in 315, because he excited the jealousy of the patricians by distributing wheat to the people during a famine;[90] in 369, Manlius, the saviour of Rome, because he had expended his fortune in relieving insolvent debtors.[91] Thus will fall victims to the same accusation the reformer Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, and lastly, at a later period, the great Cæsar himself. But if the pretended fear of the return of the ancient _régime_ was a powerful means of government in the hands of the patricians, the real fear of seeing their privileges attacked by the plebeians restrained them within the bounds of moderation and justice.