should abstain; for no
good is to be got from them, whether for ourselves, for our country, or
for any one else. On the contrary, when those conspired against escape,
they become harsher and more unsufferable than before, as, in the
examples given, Florence, Athens, and Heraclea had cause to know. True
it is that the conspiracy contrived by Pelopidas for the liberation of
his country, had to encounter every conceivable hindrance, and yet had
the happiest end. For Pelopidas had to deal, not with two tyrants only,
but with ten; and so far from having their confidence, could not, being
an outlaw, even approach them. And yet he succeeded in coming to Thebes,
in putting the tyrants to death, and in freeing his country. But
whatever he did was done with the aid of one of the counsellors of
the tyrants, a certain Charon, through whom he had all facilities for
executing his design. Let none, however, take this case as a pattern;
for that it was in truth a desperate attempt, and its success a marvel,
was and is the opinion of all historians, who speak of it as a thing
altogether extraordinary and unexampled.

The execution of a plot may be frustrated by some groundless alarm or
unforeseen mischance occurring at the very moment when the scheme is to
be carried out. On the morning on which Brutus and his confederates were
to slay Caesar, it so happened that Caesar talked for a great while with
Cneus Pompilius Lenas, one of the conspirators; which some of the others
observing, were in terror that Pompilius was divulging the conspiracy to
Caesar; whose life they would therefore have attempted then and there,
without waiting his arrival in the senate house, had they not been
reassured by seeing that when the conference ended he showed no sign of
unusual emotion. False alarms of this sort are to be taken into account
and allowed for, all the more that they are easily raised. For he who
has not a clear conscience is apt to assume that others are speaking of
him. A word used with a wholly different purpose, may throw his mind
off its balance and lead him to fancy that reference is intended to the
matter he is engaged on, and cause him either to betray the conspiracy
by flight, or to derange its execution by anticipating the time fixed.
And the more there are privy to the conspiracy, the likelier is this to
happen.

As to the mischances which may befall, since these are unforeseen, they
can only be instanced by examples which may make m