by the nobles, who after having been already humiliated by their subjection to plebeian rule abandon their ancient aristocratic claim to sovereignty and think only of securing a comfortable life; and by the plebeians, who after an experiment in anarchy or unbridled demagogy (than which no tyranny is worse, since it produces as many tyrants as there are bold and dissolute men in the state) are led by their own misfortunes to welcome peace and protection. Monarchy is then a new form of popular government. In order that a powerful man may become sovereign, it is necessary that the people shall take his side, and that he should rule in a popular manner; making all his subjects equal, humiliating the great to protect the multitude against their oppression, keeping the people satisfied and content as regards the necessaries of life and the enjoyment of natural liberty, and employing a well-balanced system of concessions and privileges granted sometimes to whole classes (in which case they are called "privileges of liberty") sometimes to particular persons, by promoting into a higher class men of unusual merit and exceptional virtues. In monarchy, a "humane" government no less than democracy, the process of humanisation or softening of customs and laws, already begun under popular republics, still continues. The rigid bonds of the patriarchal family and kinship relax further. The Emperors, who tended to be overshadowed by the splendours of the nobility, made efforts to promote the rights of human nature common to nobles and plebeians. Augustus strove to safeguard the trusteeships by which formerly property had passed to persons incapable of inheritance thanks only to the conscientiousness of the injured heir; he transformed such understandings from a right into a necessity, by obliging heirs to execute them. A number of senatusconsulta followed which placed _cognati_ (relations generally) on a level with _agnati_ (relations through the father). Finally, Justinian abolished the difference between property inherited and property in the hands of trustees, confused the Falcidian quarter with the Trebellian and put _cognati_ and _agnati_ on precisely the same footing as regards inheritance _"ab intestato."_ The latest Roman law was so entirely on the side of testaments that, while originally these could be broken for the slightest cause, they now had to be interpreted in the way most adapted to secure their validity. Once the "cyclopean" right of the father over the persons of his children had disappeared, his economic right over property acquired by them disappeared also; and hence the emperors first introduced the _peculium castrense_ (property obtained during military service) to attract young men to war, then the _peculium quasicastrense,_ to attract them into the praetorian guard, and finally to satisfy those who were neither soldiers nor scholars the _peculium adventitium._ They deprived the _patria potestas_ of