ntrary to the law of nations had
fought against the Gauls, but even clothed them with honour. For, from
these instances, we may well infer that the rest of the wise ordinances
instituted by Romulus, and the other prudent kings, had begun to be held
of less account than they deserved, and less than was essential for the
maintenance of good government.

And therefore it was that Rome was visited by this calamity from
without, to the end that all her ordinances might be reformed, and the
people taught that it behoved them not only to maintain religion and
justice, but also to esteem their worthy citizens, and to prize their
virtues beyond any advantages of which they themselves might seem to
have been deprived at their instance. And this, we find, was just the
effect produced. For no sooner was the city retaken, than all the
ordinances of the old religion were at once restored; the Fabii, who had
fought in violation of the law of nations, were punished; and the worth
and excellence of Camillus so fully recognized, that the senate and the
whole people, laying all jealousies aside, once more committed to him
the entire charge of public affairs.

It is necessary then, as I have said already, that where men dwell
together in a regulated society, they be often reminded of those
ordinances in conformity with which they ought to live, either by
something inherent in these, or else by some external accident. A
reminder is given in the former of these two ways, either by the passing
of some law whereby the members of the society are brought to an
account; or else by some man of rare worth arising among them,
whose virtuous life and example have the same effect as a law. In a
Commonwealth, accordingly, this end is served either by the virtues of
some one of its citizens, or by the operation of its institutions.

The institutions whereby the Roman Commonwealth was led back to its
starting point, were the tribuneship of the people and the censorship,
together with all those laws which were passed to check the insolence
and ambition of its citizens. Such institutions, however, require fresh
life to be infused into them by the worth of some one man who fearlessly
devotes himself to give them effect in opposition to the power of those
who set them at defiance.

Of the laws being thus reinforced in Rome, before its capture by the
Gauls, we have notable examples in the deaths of the sons of Brutus, of
the Decemvirs, and of Manlius Frum