n, after the
death of Virginia, they quitted the city, and for their protection
created twenty tribunes from among themselves. Unless this be done, what
Titus Livius has observed in the passage cited, will always prove true,
namely, that a multitude is strong while it holds together, but so soon
as each of those who compose it begins to think of his own private
danger, it becomes weak and contemptible.

CHAPTER LVIII.--_That a People is wiser and more constant than a Prince_

That "_nothing is more fickle and inconstant than the multitude_" is
affirmed not by Titus Livius only, but by all other historians, in whose
chronicles of human actions we often find the multitude condemning some
citizen to death, and afterwards lamenting him and grieving greatly for
his loss, as the Romans grieved and lamented for Manlius Capitolinus,
whom they had themselves condemned to die. In relating which
circumstance our author observes "_In a short time the people, having no
longer cause to fear him, began to deplore his death_" And elsewhere,
when speaking of what took place in Syracuse after the murder of
Hieronymus, grandson of Hiero, he says, "_It is the nature of the
multitude to be an abject slave, or a domineering master_"

It may be that in attempting to defend a cause, which, as I have said,
all writers are agreed to condemn, I take upon me a task so hard and
difficult that I shall either have to relinquish it with shame or pursue
it with opprobrium. Be that as it may, I neither do, nor ever shall
judge it a fault, to support opinion by arguments, where it is not
sought to impose them by violence or authority I maintain, then, that
this infirmity with which historians tax the multitude, may with equal
reason be charged against every individual man, but most of all against
princes, since all who are not controlled by the laws, will commit the
very same faults as are committed by an uncontrolled multitude. Proof
whereof were easy, since of all the many princes existing, or who have
existed, few indeed are or have been either wise or good.

I speak of such princes as have had it in their power to break the reins
by which they are controlled, among whom I do not reckon those kings
who reigned in Egypt in the most remote antiquity when that country was
governed in conformity with its laws; nor do I include those kings who
reigned in Sparta, nor those who in our own times reign in France, which
kingdom, more than any other where