CHAPTER XLIX.: a republic that desires to maintain her liberties needs daily fresh precautions: it was by such merits that fabius obtained the surname of maximus.

We have already said elsewhere, that in a great republic there are constantly evils occurring requiring remedies which must be efficacious in proportion to the importance of the occasion. And if ever any city experienced strange and unforeseen ills, it was Rome. Such, for instance, as the plot which the Roman ladies seem to have formed to kill their husbands, so that many had actually poisoned them, whilst others had prepared the poison for the purpose. Such was also the conspiracy of

the Bacchanals, discovered at the time of the Macedonian war, in which many thousands of men and women were implicated. This conspiracy would have proved very dangerous to Rome had it not been discovered in time; and if the Romans had not been accustomed to punish the guilty, even if they were in great numbers. Even if we had not an infinity of other evidences of the greatness of this republic, it would be made manifest by the extent of her executions, and the character of the punishment she inflicted upon the guilty. Rome did not hesitate to have a whole legion put to death according to a judicial decision, or to destroy an entire city, or to send eight or ten thousand men into exile with such extraordinary conditions as could hardly be complied with by one man, much less by so many. It was thus she banished to Sicily the soldiers that had unfortunately allowed themselves to be defeated at Cannæ, imposing upon them the conditions not to live in any cities, and to take their meals standing. But the most terrible of her executions was the system of decimation in her armies, when, by lot, one soldier out of every ten was put to death. It was impossible to devise a more terrible punishment, where a great number were involved, than this. For when any crime is committed by a multitude, where the individual authors cannot be ascertained, it is impossible to punish them all, there being so many. To chastise a part, leaving the others unpunished, would be unjust to the first, whilst the others would feel encouraged to commit fresh crimes. But where all have merited death, and only every tenth man is punished by lot, these will have occasion to complain only of fate; whilst those who escape will be careful not to commit other crimes, for fear that the next time the lot might fall to them. The poisoners and the Bacchanals were punished as the greatness of their crimes merited.

Although the consequences of such evils in a republic are bad, yet they are not mortal, for there is always time to correct them. But it is not the same with such evils as affect the state itself; for unless they are checked and corrected by some wise hand, they will cause the ruin of the state. The liberality with which the Romans used to grant the privileges of citizenship to strangers had attracted a great many new families to Rome. These began to exercise so great an influence in the elections that it sensibly changed the government, and caused

it to deviate from the institutions and principles of the men who had been accustomed to direct it. When Quintus Fabius, who was Censor at that time, observed this, he had all the new families that had caused this disorder enrolled into four tribes; so that, being confined to such narrow limits, they should not corrupt all Rome. Fabius had well comprehended the evil, and promptly and without difficulty applied a suitable remedy; which was so well received by the republic, that it earned him the surname of Maximus.