CHAPTER XLIV.: a multitude without a chief is useless; and it is not well to threaten before having the power to act.

The death of Virginia had caused the Roman people to retire, armed, to the Mons Sacer. The Senate sent ambassadors to them to ask by what authority they had abandoned their captains and retired to the mountains, and so highly was the authority of the Senate respected, that, the people being without a chief, no one dared to answer; as Titus Livius says, “not for want of plenty to say in reply, but because they lacked some one to make the answer for them”; which is a case in point showing the uselessness of a multitude without a head. Virginius perceived this difficulty, and by his order they appointed twenty military Tribunes to act as their chiefs, to answer for them and to confer with the Senate. They demanded that the Senators Valerius and Horatius should be sent to them, and that they would make known their will to them. But these Senators would not go until after the Ten had resigned their magistracy; after which, having arrived at the Mons Sacer, where the people were, these demanded of them the re-establishment of the Tribunes of the people, and that no magistrates should be appointed without an appeal to the people; and, furthermore, that all the Decemvirs should be delivered up to them, as they wanted to burn them alive. Valerius and Horatius approved of their first demands, but objected to the latter as impious, saying, “You condemn cruelty,

and fall into the same crime yourselves”; and advised them to say nothing about the Decemvirs, as they themselves would see that their office and authority should be taken from them, and that the people afterwards would not lack opportunity to satisfy their vengeance. From this we plainly see the folly and imprudence of demanding a thing, and saying beforehand that it is intended to be used for evil; and that one should never show one’s intentions, but endeavor to obtain one’s desires anyhow. For it is enough to ask a man to give up his arms, without telling him that you intend killing him with them; after you have the arms in hand, then you can do your will with them.