CHAPTER XXXIX.: the same accidents often happen to different peoples.

Whoever considers the past and the present will readily observe that all cities and all peoples are and ever have been animated by the same desires and the same passions; so that it is easy, by diligent study of the past, to foresee what is likely to happen in the future in any republic, and to apply those remedies that were used by the ancients, or, not finding any that were employed by them, to devise new ones from the similarity of the events. But as such considerations are neglected or not understood by most of those who read, or, if understood by these, are unknown by those who govern, it follows that the same troubles generally recur in all republics.

The city of Florence, having after the year 1494 lost a portion of her dominions, such as Pisa and other places, was obliged to make war upon him who held these places; and as he was powerful, they expended great sums of money without any advantage. These large expenditures necessitated heavy taxes, and these caused infinite complaints from the people; and as the war was conducted by a council composed

of ten citizens who were called “the Ten of the War,” the mass of the people began to hold them in aversion, as being the cause of the war and its expenses, and began to persuade themselves that, if this council were done away with, the war would also be ended. Thus when the time came for reappointing the Ten, they allowed their term to expire without renewing the council, and committed their functions to the Signoria. This course was the more pernicious, as it not only did not relieve them of the war, as the people had persuaded themselves that it would, but it removed the men who had conducted it with prudence, and produced altogether such disorder, that they lost, besides Pisa, Arezzo and many other places; so that the people, perceiving the error they had committed, and that the cause of the evil was the fever and not the physician, re-established the Council of Ten.

A similar ill-feeling had arisen in Rome against the Consuls; for the people, seeing one war growing out of another, and that there was no prospect of repose for them, instead of charging the cause of these wars, as they should have done, upon the ambition of their neighbors who sought to overwhelm them, attributed it to the ambition of the nobles, who, unable to oppress the people within the city of Rome where they were defended by the Tribunes, wished to lead the people outside of Rome, where, being without any support or protection, they could oppress them at will. And therefore they thought that it would be necessary either to remove the Consuls altogether, or to regulate their power in such manner that they should have no authority over the people either at home or abroad. The first who attempted to introduce such a law was one of the Tribunes named Terentillus; he proposed the creation of a Council of Five to examine into the powers of the Consuls and to limit it. This greatly excited the nobles, to whom it seemed as though the very majesty of the empire would thereby be annihilated, and that the nobility would lose all rank in the republic. Nevertheless, such was the obstinacy of the Tribunes that the consular dignity was abolished; and after some other regulations it was finally resolved rather to create Tribunes with consular powers, than to continue the Consuls, so great was their aversion to that office and authority. And this system was continued for a long time, until they saw the error they had committed, and re-established the Consuls; just as in Florence they returned to the Council of Ten.