The internal and external dissensions of the republics of Greece, and the consequent loss of their independence and subjugation by the Macedonian monarchy, or the half-Asiatic half-Grecian powers which sprung out of it, affords a sufficient confirmation of the law that the republican constitution, in the times of moral degeneracy, invariably terminates in popular anarchy and ruin. The same transition in the Roman polity presents us with interesting considerations of a higher but different kind. For in this instance the change was effected with clear ideas, definite views, and well-digested principles. After a long and unparalleled succession of bloody civil wars, and an equally fearful series of foreign conquest and aggression, which were almost indispensable as an outlet for the wild and ambitions passions of men, the catastrophe which forecasting minds had long foreseen at last came about. And instead of continuing a hopeless resistance, it was now the first object of the wise and prudent to convert the new military power into an instrument of peace, and by investing the modern but absolute authority with all the old and hallowed forms of dignity, to bring it as near as possible to the character of an hereditary monarchy. It is to the tendency to improvement which forms the germ of these ideas that we must look for the apology, while in the course of history at this period there lies whatever there can be of reason and justification for such absolute despotism as prevailed at this era in the political world. In itself, however, it can not be too often repeated, it is altogether formless and full of imperfection. A true family succession and hereditary dynasty, however, was scarcely possible, so long as there existed no limit to caprice in adoption or divorce, and when all the relations of marriage and the family were undermined by the universal corruption in morals, which the better emperors sought in vain to check and restrain.