# 31. Strong Republics and Outstanding Men retain their Equanimity and their Dignity under all Circumstances

Among the other splendid things which our historian makes Camillus say and do in order to show how an outstanding man should behave he puts into Camillus’ mouth these words: ‘The dictatorship did not elate me, nor did exile depress me.’ One sees here how great men remain the same whatever befalls. If fortune changes, sometimes raising them, sometimes casting them down, they do not change, but remain ever resolute, so resolute in mind and in conduct throughout life that it is easy for anyone to see that fortune holds no sway over them. Not so do weak men behave; for by good fortune they are buoyed up and intoxicated, and ascribe such success as they meet with, to a virtue they never possessed, so that they become insupportable and odious to all who have anything to do with them. This then brings about a sudden change in their lot, the prospect of which causes them to go to the other extreme and to become base and abject. Hence it comes about that rulers so built prefer to run away rather than to defend themselves in adversity, just as do men who find themselves defenceless because they have misused the good fortune they had.

These virtues and these vices, which are found as I have been saying in a particular man, are also found in a republic; of which the Romans and the Venetians provide us with examples. No bad luck ever made the first become abject, nor did good fortune ever make them arrogant. This is manifest from their behaviour after the defeat at Cannae, and after the victory they gained over Antiochus. For though the defeat was very serious since it was their third, they never became disheartened; but kept their armies in the field; declined to redeem those who had allowed themselves to be taken prisoners, contrary to their practice, did not send emissaries to Hannibal or to Carthage to sue for peace; but, dispensing with any such abject steps as these, devoted their whole attention to the war, and, owing to shortage of men, armed both the old and their slaves. When Hanno, the Carthaginian, came to hear of this, he pointed out to the Carthaginian senate – as we have remarked above, what small account the Romans made of the defeat at Cannae. Hence it is clear that in trying times the Romans were not despondent, nor were they humbled. Nor, on the other hand, did prosperous times make them arrogant; for when Antiochus sent envoys to Scipio to ask for terms prior to the battle in which he was finally defeated, Scipio laid down the following as his conditions for peace: that Antiochus should withdraw into Syria and that the rest should be left to the decision of the Roman people. These terms Antiochus having rejected, a battle took place, and having lost it, he sent to Scipio envoys commissioned to accept all the conditions which the victors should lay down. Whereupon Scipio proposed precisely the same terms as those he had offered before he won, and then remarked ‘that the Romans, when beaten, do not lose courage, nor, when they win, do they become arrogant’.

The Venetians we find doing just the opposite of this. To them it seemed that their good fortune was due to a virtue which they did not in fact possess. Moreover, so arrogant did they become that they called the king of France a ‘son of St Mark’, showed no respect for the Church, had their eye by no means on Italy alone, but had already made up their minds to set up a monarchy similar to that of Rome. Then, when good luck deserted them and a partial defeat was inflicted on them at Vaila by the king of France, they lost the whole of their dominions, not merely through rebellions, but a goodly portion of them they gave to the Pope and to the king of Spain out of sheer dejection and despondency of mind. So dispirited, indeed, were they that they sent ambassadors to the Emperor offering to become his tributaries, and wrote grovelling and abject letters to the Pope to stir up his compassion. To reach which unhappy state it took them four days, and yet it was but a partial defeat they had suffered; for, after the engagement, in the fighting which took place during the retreat of their army only about half their forces were engaged, so that one of their commissioners who escaped, reached Verona with more than twenty-five thousand troops, comprising both foot and cavalry. Hence, if in Venice and in Venetian institutions there had been any sort of virtue they could easily have pulled themselves together and tried their luck again, this time either to win or to lose with greater glory, or to come to an agreement on more honourable terms. But their pusillanimity, which arose from their institutions being ill adapted for war, made them lose at one stroke alike their dominions and their courage.

It will always happen thus to any state governed as was theirs. For this arrogance in prosperity and dejection in adversity is due to the way you behave and to the education you have received; which, if it be feeble and futile, makes you the same, and if it be of the other kind, makes you another sort of person, i.e. makes you know the world better and so be less exhilarated in good times and less depressed in bad. And what I say of the individual here may be said also of the many who live together in one and the same republic, for they are fashioned to the same state of perfection as characterizes that republic’s mode of life.

Although I have said elsewhere that the security of all states is based on good military discipline, and that where it does not exist, there can neither be good laws nor anything else that is good, to repeat this does not seem to me superfluous; for the need for this discipline is apparent on every page in Livy’s history, where one sees that the soldiery cannot be good unless they are in training, and that it is impossible to train them unless they are your own subjects. For, since no soldiery is always at war, nor yet can be, it is important to train it in time of peace; but this training is impossible on account of the cost except in the case of your own subjects.

When Camillus led forth an army to fight the Tuscans, as we have said above, and his soldiers saw how large was the army of the enemy, they were terrified, for so inferior did they feel themselves to be that it looked to them as if they could not possibly withstand their attack. When it came to the ears of Camillus that the men in camp were so ill disposed to fight, he appeared among them and, going about the camp talking to this group of soldiers and that, drove this notion out of their heads. Finally, without issuing any further orders to those in camp, he merely said: ‘Let each man do what he has been taught to do or has been accustomed to do.’ If we consider carefully this plan of action and the words used to encourage the men to go and fight the enemy, it is clear that neither could such words have been used nor the army have been induced to do any such thing unless that army had already been trained and drilled both in peace-time and in war. For on soldiers who have not learned how to do anything, no general can rely, confident that anything they may do will be well done. Even should a second Hannibal command such troops he would in that case go under. For, since during a battle a general cannot be everywhere, he will inevitably meet with disaster unless he has already so drilled every unit that it has imbibed his spirit and is well acquainted with his practice and mode of procedure.

If then a city be armed and disciplined as Rome was, and all its citizens, alike in their private and official capacity, have a chance to put alike their virtue and the power of fortune to the test of experience, it will be found that always and in all circumstances they will be of the same mind and will maintain their dignity in the same way. But, when they are not familiar with arms and trust merely to the whim of fortune, not to their own virtue, they will change with the changes of fortune and will display in all cases the characteristics exemplified by the Venetians.