o the nobility; they
therefore consented to it without having recourse to arms; so that,
after some disputes concerning particular points, both parties agreed to
the enactment of a law which, while it satisfied the people, preserved
the nobility in the enjoyment of their dignity.

On the other hand, the demands of the people of Florence being insolent
and unjust, the nobility, became desperate, prepared for their defense
with their utmost energy, and thus bloodshed and the exile of citizens
followed. The laws which were afterward made, did not provide for the
common good, but were framed wholly in favor of the conquerors. This
too, must be observed, that from the acquisition of power, made by the
people of Rome, their minds were very much improved; for all the offices
of state being attainable as well by the people as the nobility,
the peculiar excellencies of the latter exercised a most beneficial
influence upon the former; and as the city increased in virtue she
attained a more exalted greatness.

But in Florence, the people being conquerors, the nobility were deprived
of all participation in the government; and in order to regain a portion
of it, it became necessary for them not only to seem like the people,
but to be like them in behavior, mind, and mode of living. Hence arose
those changes in armorial bearings, and in the titles of families, which
the nobility adopted, in order that they might seem to be of the people;
military virtue and generosity of feeling became extinguished in them;
the people not possessing these qualities, they could not appreciate
them, and Florence became by degrees more and more depressed and
humiliated. The virtue of the Roman nobility degenerating into pride,
the citizens soon found that the business of the state could not be
carried on without a prince. Florence had now come to such a point, that
with a comprehensive mind at the head of affairs she would easily have
been made to take any form that he might have been disposed to give her;
as may be partly observed by a perusal of the preceding book.

Having given an account of the origin of Florence, the commencement
of her liberty, with the causes of her divisions, and shown how the
factions of the nobility and the people ceased with the tyranny of the
duke of Athens, and the ruin of the former, we have now to speak of
the animosities between the citizens and the plebeians and the various
circumstances which they produced.

The no