Another portion of power should be deposited in the hands of the aristocracy, and certain things should be reserved to the judgment and wish of the multitude.

This constitution, in the first place, possesses that great equality without which men cannot long maintain their freedom; secondly, it offers a great stability, while the particular separate and isolated forms easily fall into their contraries; so that a king is succeeded by a despot, an aristocracy by a faction, a democracy by a mob and confusion; and all these forms are frequently sacrificed to new revolutions.

In this united and mixed constitution, however, similar disasters cannot happen without the greatest vices in public men.

For there can be little to occasion revolution in a state in which every person is firmly established in his appropriate rank, and there are but few modes of corruption into which we can fall.
XLVI.

But I fear, Laelius, and you, my amiable and learned friends, that if I were to dwell any longer on this argument, my words would seem rather like the lessons of a master, and not like the free conversation of one who is uniting with you in the consideration of truth.