d by another, and that
things will never settle down until a new lord be established; unless,
indeed, the combined goodness and valour of some one citizen should
maintain freedom, which, even then, will endure only for his lifetime;
as happened twice in Syracuse, first under the rule of Dion, and again
under that of Timoleon, whose virtues while they lived kept their city
free, but on whose death it fell once more under a tyranny.

But the strongest example that can be given is that of Rome, which on
the expulsion of the Tarquins was able at once to seize on liberty and
to maintain it; yet, on the deaths of Caesar, Caligula, and Nero, and on
the extinction of the Julian line, was not only unable to establish her
freedom, but did not even venture a step in that direction. Results so
opposite arising in one and the same city can only be accounted for by
this, that in the time of the Tarquins the Roman people were not yet
corrupted, but in these later times had become utterly corrupt. For on
the first occasion, nothing more was needed to prepare and determine
them to shake off their kings, than that they should be bound by oath
to suffer no king ever again to reign in Rome; whereas, afterwards, the
authority and austere virtue of Brutus, backed by all the legions of the
East, could not rouse them to maintain their hold of that freedom, which
he, following in the footsteps of the first Brutus, had won for them;
and this because of the corruption wherewith the people had been
infected by the Marian faction, whereof Caesar becoming head, was able so
to blind the multitude that it saw not the yoke under which it was about
to lay its neck.

Though this example of Rome be more complete than any other, I desire to
instance likewise, to the same effect, certain peoples well known in our
own days; and I maintain that no change, however grave or violent, could
ever restore freedom to Naples or Milan, because in these States the
entire body of the people has grown corrupted. And so we find that
Milan, although desirous to return to a free form of government, on the
death of Filippo Visconti, had neither the force nor the skill needed to
preserve it.

Most fortunate, therefore, was it for Rome that her kings grew corrupt
soon, so as to be driven out before the taint of their corruption had
reached the vitals of the city. For it was because these were sound
that the endless commotions which took place in Rome, so far from
being hurt