“Nevertheless, there lay no appeal from the Roman dictator to the
people; which, if there had, might have cost the commonwealth dear,
when Spurius Melius, affecting empire, circumvented and debauched the
tribunes: whereupon Titus Quintus Cincinnatus was created Dictator, who
having chosen Servilius Ahala to be his lieutenant, or magister equitum,
sent him to apprehend Melius, whom, while he disputed the commands of
the Dictator and implored the aid of the people, Ahala cut off upon
the place. By which example you may see in what cases the dictator may
prevent the blow which is ready sometimes to fall ere the people be
aware of the danger. Wherefore there lies no appeal from the Dieci,
or the Council of Ten, in Venice, to the Great Council, nor from our
Council of War to the people. For the way of proceeding of this tribe,
or the ballot, it is, as was once said for all, Venetian.
“This discourse of judicatories whereupon we are fallen, brings us
rather naturally than of design from the two general orders of every
commonwealth, that is to say, from the debating part, or the Senate, and
the resolving part, or the people, to the third, which is the executive
part or the magistracy, whereupon I shall have no need to dwell, for the
executive magistrates of this commonwealth are the strategus in arms;
the signory in their several courts, as the chancery, the exchequer; as
also the councils in divers cases within their instructions; the censors
as well in their proper magistracy, as in the Council of Religion; the
tribunes in the government of the prerogative, and that judicatory; and
the judges with their courts; of all which so much is already said or
known as may suffice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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