of we have knowledge at the present
day, is under the government of its laws. For kings who live, as these
do, subject to constitutional restraint, are not to be counted when
we have to consider each man's proper nature, and to see whether he
resembles the multitude. For to draw a comparison with such princes as
these, we must take the case of a multitude controlled as they are, and
regulated by the laws, when we shall find it to possess the same virtues
which we see in them, and neither conducting itself as an abject slave
nor as a domineering master.

Such was the people of Rome, who, while the commonwealth continued
uncorrupted, never either served abjectly nor domineered haughtily; but,
on the contrary, by means of their magistrates and their ordinances,
maintained their place, and when forced to put forth their strength
against some powerful citizen, as in the case of Manlius, the decemvirs,
and others who sought to oppress them, did so; but when it was necessary
for the public welfare to yield obedience to the dictator or consuls,
obeyed. And if the Roman people mourned the loss of the dead Manlius,
it is no wonder; for they mourned his virtues, which had been of such
a sort that their memory stirred the regret of all, and would have had
power to produce the same feelings even in a prince; all writers being
agreed that excellence is praised and admired even by its enemies. But
if Manlius when he was so greatly mourned, could have risen once more
from the dead, the Roman people would have pronounced the same sentence
against him which they pronounced when they led him forth from the
prison-house, and straightway condemned him to die. And in like manner
we see that princes, accounted wise, have put men to death, and
afterwards greatly lamented them, as Alexander mourned for Clitus and
others of his friends, and Herod for Mariamne.

But what our historian says of the multitude, he says not of a multitude
which like the people of Rome is controlled by the laws, but of an
uncontrolled multitude like the Syracusans, who were guilty of all
these crimes which infuriated and ungoverned men commit, and which
were equally committed by Alexander and Herod in the cases mentioned.
Wherefore the nature of a multitude is no more to be blamed than the
nature of princes, since both equally err when they can do so without
regard to consequences. Of which many instances, besides those already
given, might be cited from the history o