Nor is it otherwise with
Venice, where the Doge Loredano was sentenced by the great
Council, and Antonio Grimani, afterward doge, questioned, for
that he, being admiral, had suffered the Turk to take Lepanto in
view of his fleet.
"Nevertheless, there lay no appeal from the Roman dictator to
the people; which, if there had, might have cost the commonwealth
dear, when Spurius Melius, affecting empire, circumvented and
debauched the tribunes: whereupon Titus Quintus Cincinnatus was
created Dictator, who having chosen Servilius Ahala to be his
lieutenant, or magister equitum, sent him to apprehend Melius,
whom, while he disputed the commands of the Dictator and implored
the aid of the people, Ahala cut off upon the place. By which
example you may see in what cases the dictator may prevent the
blow which is ready sometimes to fall ere the people be aware of
the danger. Wherefore there lies no appeal from the Dieci, or the
Council of Ten, in Venice, to the Great Council, nor from our
Council of War to the people. For the way of proceeding of this
tribe, or the ballot, it is, as was once said for all, Venetian.
"This discourse of judicatories whereupon we are fallen,
brings us rather naturally than of design from the two general
orders of every commonwealth, that is to say, from the debating
part, or the Senate, and the resolving part, or the people, to
the third, which is the executive part or the magistracy,
whereupon I shall have no need to dwell, for the executive
magistrates of this commonwealth are the strategus in arms; the
signory in their several courts, as the chancery, the exchequer;
as also the councils in divers cases within their instructions;
the censors as well in their proper magistracy, as in the Council
of Religion; the tribunes in the government of the prerogative,
and that judicatory; and the judges with their courts; of all
which so much is already said or known as may suffice.
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