"The Republic had now enjoyed halcyon days of peace since the return of the Zaratines to their allegiance in 1313. Twenty years of foreign war and domestic convulsion (1293-1313) were thus followed by twenty years of external and internal repose (1313-1333). Dalmatia was tranquillized; Genoa was humiliated. The Lower Empire, though not without its alarming symptoms, was quiescent. The pressure of extraordinary taxes {116} was no longer sensible. Prices were low. Provisions were abundant. Commerce had received an enormous impulse and expansion. The condition of trade was highly flourishing. The upper classes were elated by the development of fresh sources of wealth. The lower orders were exhilarated by the removal of their burdens. It was under these auspicious circumstances that the time was approaching for the dissolution of the Council of Ten. "The original jurisdiction of this unique tribunal had been of a purely exclusive and strictly transient character. To devise measures for the safety of the State, to obtain by any expedients every new clew to the conspiracy of 1310, to unravel these clews to their source with untiring diligence, to bring to justice all who might have eluded detection, were the objects to which the labors of Decemvirs were directed, and the points to which their cognizance was confined. But the Council, even if its attributes had not been emphatically inquisitorial, showed no disposition to be perfunctory. The line of demarcation, if any such line had existed, was soon obliterated or ignored. Every branch of the Executive was submitted in its turn, under various pretexts, to the novel influence. Nor could it be denied that that influence was exercised, on the whole, to a highly beneficial end. It had been accounted a great revolution when, so recently as 1298, the Great Council succeeded in arrogating to itself the prerogatives which formerly belonged to the people. But the narrow jealousy and distrust, which were gradually growing up in the ranks of the nobility, had long made it palpably evident to the more discerning, that a still higher and still more concentric power must eventually arise to wrest these prerogatives from the hands of the Great Council itself. That power was already found to exist in the Decemvirs. Primarily elected, and constantly renewed by the legislative body on the clearest ground of expediency, the Ten had incessantly striven to popularize themselves, and to strengthen their position by propitiating the lower classes on the one hand, and by turning to account, on the other hand, with unequalled dexterity the disunion among the patricians, to rule that order with a hand of iron. By some the Dictatorship was viewed as an indispensable ingredient in the Constitution; by some it was tolerated as an odious necessity; {117} but all accepted the silent innovation in a spirit of acquiescence. The Decemvirs knew their strength, and they quickly made that strength felt.