# 3. Rome became a Great City by ruining the Cities round about her, and by granting Foreigners Easy Access to her Honours

‘Rome meanwhile grows on the ruins of Alba.’ Those who plan to convert a city into a great empire should use every available device to fill it with inhabitants; for unless a city has a large male population it cannot do much. There are two ways of acquiring a large population, by friendliness and by force. It is done by friendliness when the road is kept open and safe for foreigners who propose to come and dwell there so that everybody is glad to do so. It is done by force, when neighbouring cities are destroyed and their inhabitants are sent to dwell in your city. This custom was so studiously observed in Rome that, in the time of its sixth king, there dwelt in Rome eighty thousand men bearing arms. For in this the Romans sought to do as a good farmer does, who, that a plant may grow big and produce and mature its fruit, cuts off the first branches that are put forth so that its roots may gather virtue and in due course may produce greener and more fruitful branches.

That this method of providing for expansion and a future empire was both necessary and good is shown by the example of Sparta and Athens, two republics which were very well armed and governed by the best laws, yet never attained the greatness of the Roman empire, though Rome appears to have been more tumultuous and not so well governed as they were. For this no reason can be assigned other than that already adduced. For Rome, by pursuing these two ways of enlarging the composition of her city, was able to put under arms two hundred and eighty thousand men, whereas Sparta and Athens could never muster twenty thousand each. This was not due to Rome’s being in a more advantageous position than was theirs, but simply to the difference in their modes of procedure. For Lycurgus, the founder of the Spartan republic, thought nothing more likely to frustrate his laws than the admixture of new inhabitants, and so did everything he could to prevent foreigners having any intercourse with the citizens. Not only was intermarriage forbidden, but also the admittance to civic rights and other forms of intercommunication which bring men together. In addition to which he instituted a coinage of leather, so that nobody might be tempted to come there with merchandise or any manufactured goods. Hence it was impossible for the inhabitants of that city ever to grow in number.

Since all our actions resemble those of nature, it is neither possible nor natural that a slender trunk should support a heavy branch. Hence a small republic cannot take possession of cities and kingdoms which are stronger and larger than itself: and, should it actually do so, it will happen as it does in the case of a tree which has a branch that is bigger than its trunk: it will support the branch with difficulty, and the least wind weakens it. This is just what happened to Sparta. It occupied all the cities of Greece. Then, when Thebes rebelled, all the other cities rebelled, and the trunk was left without branches. In Rome’s case this could not happen, for it had so large a trunk that it could easily support any branch. This mode of procedure, therefore, together with others of which we shall presently speak, made Rome great and exceedingly powerful, as Titus Livy pithily points out when he says: ‘Rome meanwhile grows on the ruins of Alba.’