ish than to be compliant._"[1] If it be asked how
these opposite views can be reconciled, I answer that you exercise
authority either over men used to regard you as their equal, or over men
who have always been subject to you. When those over whom you exercise
authority are your equals, you cannot trust wholly to punishment or to
that severity of which Tacitus speaks. And since in Rome itself the
commons had equal weight with the nobles, none appointed their captain
for a time only, could control them by using harshness and severity.
Accordingly we find that those Roman captains who gained the love of
their soldiers and were considerate of them, often achieved greater
results than those who made themselves feared by them in an unusual
degree, unless, like Manlius Torquatus, these last were endowed with
consummate valour. But he who has to govern subjects such as those of
whom Tacitus speaks, to prevent their growing insolent and trampling
upon him by reason of his too great easiness, must resort to punishment
rather than to compliance. Still, to escape hatred, punishment should be
moderate in degree, for to make himself hated is never for the interest
of any prince. And to escape hatred, a prince has chiefly to guard
against tampering with the property of any of his subjects; for where
nothing is to be gained by it, no prince will desire to shed blood,
unless, as seldom happens, constrained to do so by necessity. But where
advantage is to be gained thereby, blood will always flow, and neither
the desire to shed it, nor causes for shedding it will ever be wanting,
as I have fully shown when discussing this subject in another treatise.

Quintius therefore was more deserving of praise than Appius.
Nevertheless the opinion of Tacitus, duly restricted and not understood
as applying to a case like that of Appius, merits approval. But since I
have spoken of punishment and indulgence, it seems not out of place
to show how a single act of humanity availed more than arms with the
citizens of Falerii.

[Footnote 1: "In multitudine regenda plus poena quam obsequium valet."
But compare Annals, III. 55, "Obsequium inde in principem et aemulandi
amoi validioi quam poena ex legibus et metus."]

CHAPTER XX.--_How one humane act availed more with the men of Falerii,
than all the might of the Roman Arms._

When the besieging army of the Romans lay round Falerii, the master of a
school wherein the best-born youths of the city were