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We have nothing to do here with any problem of modern ethics respecting military usurpation and tyrannicide, two things which must always stand together in the court of morality. Tyrannicide, like suicide, was the rule of the ancient world, and would have been acknowledged by Caesar himself, before he grasped supreme power, as an established duty.
For a young gentleman who talks much about his country, tyrannicide, and Epaminondas, this work, diluted in a sufficient quantity of Rollin and Berthelemi, may be a very useful remedy. The errors of both parties arise from an ignorance or a neglect of the fundamental principles of political science.
He acknowledged his crime, and said that he repented of it. He thought it due to the Church of which he was a member, and on which his conduct had brought reproach, to declare that he had been misled, not by any casuistry about tyrannicide, but merely by the violence of his own evil passions. Poor Keyes was in an agony of terror. His tears and lamentations moved the pity of some of the spectators.
For the Italian ethics of tyrannicide, see back, pp. 169, 170. See p. 166. See p. 398. It is printed in Arch. Stor, vol. i. 'I am over-burdened with food, and I have eaten salt meats; so that I do not seem able to join my spirit to God.... God have pity on me, for they have burdened me with food. Oh, how thoughtless of them! His words cannot be translated.
From the reading, I say, of such books, men have undertaken to kill their Kings, because the Greek and Latine writers, in their books, and discourses of Policy, make it lawfull, and laudable, for any man so to do; provided before he do it, he call him Tyrant. For they say not Regicide, that is, killing of a King, but Tyrannicide, that is, killing of a Tyrant is lawfull.
His sympathies are generous enough to include every race within the empire and every leader who had shared in Rome's making, from the divine founder, Romulus, and the tyrannicide, Brutus, to the republican martyrs, Cato and Pompey, as well as the restorers of peace, Caesar and Augustus. He has no false patriotism that blinds him to Rome's shortcomings.
Soon after it occurs to the penitent that he has not fulfilled a vow made in his youth to go on pilgrimage to the Impruneta; his friend promises to do it in his stead. Meantime the confessor a monk, as was desired, from Savonarola's monastery arrives, and after giving him the explanation quoted above of the opinion of St. Thomas Aquinas on tyrannicide, exhorts him to bear death manfully.
“Dear Democrates,”—Lycon slapped his paw on the other’s shoulder,—“why always imagine evil? Hermes is a very safe guide. I only hope our victory will be so complete Sparta will submit without fighting. It will be awkward to rule a plundered city.” “I shudder at the thought of being amongst even conquered Athenians; I shall see a tyrannicide in every boy in the Agora.”
Did he, again, perhaps imagine, being next in blood to Alessandro and direct heir to the ducal crown by the Imperial Settlement of 1530, that the city would elect her liberator for her ruler? Alfieri and Niccolini, having taken, as it were, a brief in favour of tyrannicide, praised Lorenzino as a hero.
'Very few indeed have those been, whose motive for tyrannicide was a pure love of their country's liberty; and these deserve the highest praise. It is quite impossible to furnish a complete view of Italian society under this aspect. Students must be referred to the stories of the novelists, who collected the more dramatic incidents and presented them in the form of entertaining legends.
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