# 44. A Crowda is useless without a Head; nor should it first use Threats and then appeal for the Requisite Authority

The plebs of Rome, owing to what had happened to Virginia, withdrew under arms to Mons Sacer.28 The senate sent messengers to inquire by what authority they had deserted their officers and retired to the Mountains; and so great was the respect which the plebs had for the authority of the senate that, since they had none of their leaders with them, no one ventured to reply. Not, says Titus Livy, that they lacked material for a reply, but that they lacked the men to make it. This shows at once how useless a crowd is without a head.

Virginius recognized this confusion and by his instructions twenty military tribunes were elected that the plebs might have leaders who could discuss matters with the senate and come to some agreement. When they asked that Valerius and Horatius should be sent to them that they might explain what they wanted, they declined to go until the Ten had been deprived of their magistracy. When they arrived at the Mountain where the plebs were assembled, they were told that what the plebs wanted was the appointment of plebeian tribunes, the right of appeal from any magistrate to the people, and the handing over to them of all the Ten, whom they proposed to burn alive.

Valerius and Horatius approved their first demands, but deprecated the last as barbarous, remarking: ‘you condemn cruelty, yet lapse into cruelty’. They recommended them to drop the question of the Ten, and to look instead to the reestablishment of their own authority and power, for afterwards they would not lack the means of obtaining satisfaction.

This teaches us plainly how stupid and foolish it is, when asking for something, to announce ‘I propose to do such and such a wrong thing with it.’ For one should not declare one’s intentions, but should seek to get what one desires anyhow. There is, for instance, no need in asking someone for a weapon to say ‘I propose to kill you with it’, since you can satisfy your appetite once you have the weapon in your hands.