In this point, I think the Roman polity far preferable to the Carthaginian, except in those abuses of the tribunitial power, which so frequently happened towards the decline of that republick. But when any one turbulent, seditious tribune, instigated by ambition, or corrupted by a faction (which in those times was generally the case) could by his single veto, stop all proceedings of the senate, and haul the case before the people; nay when he could drag the supreme magistrates, the consuls themselves, to prison, by his sole authority, and could commit the most outrageous, and most shameful acts of licentiousness with impunity, because their office rendered their persons sacred by law, I esteem the Carthaginian polity infinitely more eligible. For that fear and jealousy of ceding any part of the authority, which is so natural to men in power, would always be a strong motive to union in a Carthaginian senate; because it would naturally induce any member, rather to give up his private opinion, than suffer an essential part of their power to devolve to the people. But the Roman tribunitial power, which was in constant opposition to the senatorial, drew at last by much too great a weight into the democratick scale, and in the last period of their liberty was a principal leading cause of the ruin of that republick. For as the senate was unsupported by a third power so essentially requisite to preserve the balance of government in its due æquipoise, the tribunes perpetually fomented and kept up those terrible feuds, which brought on anarchy, and terminated in absolute insupportable tyranny.