Edward Gibbon on the delusion of a benign dictatorship

[The Romans] must often have recollected the instability of a happiness which depended on the character of a single man. The fatal moment was perhaps approaching, when some licentious youth, or some jealous tyrant would abuse, to the destruction of that absolute power, which they had exerted for the benefit of their people. The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might serve to display the virtues, but could never correct the vices of the emperor.

~ Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Volume I, Chapter III, Part II)