Moreover the rape
of the veil disheartened them. Spendius had clearly foreseen this.
But the nation, feeling that it was hated, clasped its money and
its gods to its heart, and its patriotism was sustained by the very
constitution of its government.
First, the power rested with all, without any one being strong enough
to engross it. Private debts were considered as public debts, men of
Chanaanitish race had a monopoly of commerce, and by multiplying the
profits of piracy with those of usury, by hard dealings in lands and
slaves and with the poor, fortunes were sometimes made. These alone
opened up all the magistracies, and although authority and money were
perpetuated in the same families, people tolerated the oligarchy because
they hoped ultimately to share in it.
The societies of merchants, in which the laws were elaborated, chose the
inspectors of the exchequer, who on leaving office nominated the hundred
members of the Council of the Ancients, themselves dependent on the
Grand Assembly, or general gathering of all the rich. As to the two
Suffets, the relics of the monarchy and the less than consuls, they were
taken from distinct families on the same day. All kinds of enmities were
contrived between them, so that they might mutually weaken each other.
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