have already said, in every great city, that
disorders needing the care of the physician continually spring up; and
the graver these disorders are, the greater will be the skill needed for
their treatment. And if ever in any city, most assuredly in Rome, we
see these disorders assume strange and unexpected shapes. As when
it appeared that all the Roman wives had conspired to murder their
husbands, many of them being found to have actually administered poison,
and many others to have drugs in readiness for the purpose.

Of like nature was the conspiracy of the Bacchanals, discovered at the
time of the Macedonian war, wherein many thousands, both men and women,
were implicated, and which, had it not been found out, or had the Romans
not been accustomed to deal with large bodies of offenders, must have
proved perilous for their city. And, indeed, if the greatness of the
Roman Republic were not declared by countless other signs, as well as by
the manner in which it caused its laws to be observed, it might be
seen in the character of the punishments which it inflicted against
wrong-doers. For in vindicating justice, it would not scruple or
hesitate to put a whole legion to death, to depopulate an entire city,
or send eight or ten thousand men at a time into banishment, subject to
the most stringent conditions, which had to be observed, not by one of
these exiles only, but by all. As in the case of those soldiers who
fought unsuccessfully at Cannae, who were banished to Sicily, subject to
the condition that they should not harbour in towns, and should all eat
standing.

But the most formidable of all their punishments was that whereby one
man out of every ten in an entire army was chosen by lot to be put to
death. For correcting a great body of men no more effectual means could
be devised; because, when a multitude have offended and the ringleaders
are not known, all cannot be punished, their number being too great;
while to punish some only, and leave the rest unpunished, were unjust
to those punished and an encouragement to those passed over to offend
again. But where you put to death a tenth chosen by lot, where all
equally deserve death, he who is punished will blame his unlucky
fortune, while he who escapes will be afraid that another time the lot
may be his, and for that reason will be careful how he repeats his
offence. The poisoners and the Bacchanals, therefore, were punished as
their crimes deserved.

Although d