Marcus Aurelius.—­They had not.  The imperial authority in my time had no limitations.

Servius Tullius.—­Rome therefore was in reality as much enslaved under you as under your son; and you left him the power of tyrannising over it by hereditary right?

Marcus Aurelius.—­I did; and the conclusion of that tyranny was his murder.

Servius Tullius.—­Unhappy father! unhappy king! what a detestable thing is absolute monarchy when even the virtues of Marcus Aurelius could not hinder it from being destructive to his family and pernicious to his country any longer than the period of his own life.  But how happy is that kingdom in which a limited monarch presides over a state so justly poised that it guards itself from such evils, and has no need to take refuge in arbitrary power against the dangers of anarchy, which is almost as bad a resource as it would be for a ship to run itself on a rock in order to escape from the agitation of a tempest.