13, 14.) [5] The guilt of Mae'lius was never proved, and no arms were found when his house was searched.

The charge of aiming at royalty is more than absurd; it is morally impossible.

He seems to have aimed at opening the higher offices of state to the plebeians, and to have looked upon the consulship with too eager desire.

He fell a sacrifice, to deter the plebeians from aiming at breaking up a patrician monopoly of power.

It is painful to see Cincinna'tus, at the close of a long and illustrious life, countenancing, if not suggesting this wanton murder.
But, as Niebuhr remarks, "no where have characters been more cruel, no where has the voice of conscience against the views of faction been so defied, as in the aristocratic republics, and not those of antiquity only.