liberty you impose yokes, he will infallibly destroy you. On the
other side, to go about a work of this nature by a league without a
head, is to abdicate that magistracy wherewith he has not only endued
you, but whereof he will require an account of you; for, 'cursed is he
that does the work of the Lord negligently.' Wherefore you are to take
the course of Rome: if you have subdued a nation that is capable of
liberty, you shall make them a present of it, as did Flaminius to
Greece, and AEmilius to Macedon, reserving to yourselves some part of
that revenue which was legally paid to the former government, together
with the right of being head of the league, which includes such levies
of men and money as shall be necessary for the carrying on of the public
work.

"For if a people have by your means attained to freedom, they owe both
to the cause and you such aid as may propagate the like fruit to the
rest of the world. But whereas every nation is not capable of her
liberty to this degree, lest you be put to doing and undoing of things,
as the Romans were in Macedon, you shall diligently observe what nation
is fit for her liberty to this degree, and what not; which is to be done
by two marks, the first if she be willing to 'help the Lord against the
mighty;' for if she has no care of the liberty of mankind she deserves
not her own. But because in this you may be deceived by pretences,
which, continuing for a while specious, may afterward vanish; the other
is more certain, and that is if she be capable of an equal agrarian;
which that it was not observed by excellent AEmilius in his donation of
liberty, and introduction of a popular state among the Macedonians, I
am more than moved to believe for two reasons; the first, because at the
same time the agrarian was odious to the Roman patricians; the second,
that the pseudo-Philip could afterward so easily recover Macedon, which
could not have happened but by the nobility, and their impatience,
having great estates, to be equalled with the people; for that the
people should otherwise, at the mere sound of a name, have thrown away
their liberty, is incredible. Wherefore be assured that the nation where
you cannot establish an equal agrarian, is incapable of its liberty
as to this kind of donation. For example, except the aristocracy in
Marpesia be dissolved, neither can that people have their liberty there,
nor you govern at home; for they continuing still liable to be sold
by t