# CHAPTER 60 — How the Consulate and Every Other Magistracy in Rome Were Bestowed Without Respect to Age

It is evident from the unfolding of history that after the consulate came to the plebeians, the Roman republic granted this office to its citizens without respect to age or family; indeed, respect for age never existed in Rome, but the city always sought to discover exceptional ability, whether it was to be found in the young or the old. The example of Valerius Corvinus, who was made consul at the age of 23, bears witness to this fact; and when speaking to his soldiers, this Valerius declared that the consulate was ‘the reward of ability, not of birth’. * Whether this opinion was a well-considered one or not should be thoroughly discussed. As for birth, it was disregarded out of necessity, and, as we have remarked on another occasion, * the same necessity experienced by Rome will be felt in every city that wishes to produce the same results Rome did, because men cannot be burdened by hardships without a reward, nor can they be deprived of the hope of obtaining such a reward without danger. And it soon seemed appropriate, therefore, that the plebeians should have the hope of obtaining the consulate, and that they should nourish this hope for a time without its being fulfilled; later, hope alone was no longer enough, and it was necessary to make it a reality. For the city that does not make use of its plebeians in some glorious enterprise can treat them as it wishes, as has been argued elsewhere, * but the city that wishes to do what Rome did does not have to make this kind of distinction. Given that this is the case, the distinction based on time has nothing to be said for it, and on the contrary must be disregarded, and when the multitude elects a young man to a position which needs the prudence of an older man, some illustrious action on his part should be the cause for elevating him to that rank. When a young man has such exceptional ability that he makes himself known through some illustrious deed, it would be a most damaging thing if the city were not able to avail itself of his talent, and if it had to wait until age has affected that strength of mind and readiness of his early years of which at that age his native city could have availed itself, as Rome availed itself of Valerius Corvinus, of Scipio, of Pompey, and of many others who triumphed while still very young.





BOOK II



PREFACE


Men always praise ancient times and condemn the present, but not always with good reason, and they are such partisans of the past that they celebrate not only those eras they have come to know through the records that historians have left behind but also those that they, having grown old, remember having seen in their younger days. When their opinion is mistaken, as it is most of the time, I am persuaded that there are several reasons leading them to make this error. The first reason is, I believe, that we do not know the complete truth about ancient affairs, and that most frequently those matters that would bring disgrace on those times are hidden, while other matters that would bestow them with glory are recounted most fully and magnificently. Most historians follow the fortune of the conquerors, and in order to render their victories more glorious not only amplify what they have most skilfully achieved but also magnify the actions of their enemies in such a fashion that anyone born afterward in either of the two provinces, that of the victor or that of the vanquished, has reason to marvel at those men and those times and is compelled to the highest degree to admire and to love them. Besides this, since men hate things either out of fear or out of envy, two very powerful explanations for hatred of things in the past are eliminated, for they cannot harm you nor can they give you cause for envy. But the contrary occurs with those matters which you handle or observe, no part of which is hidden from you, because you know them in great detail, and recognizing in them along with the good, numerous other details which are not so pleasing, you are constrained to judge them as being much inferior to ancient affairs even though, in reality, present affairs may be much more deserving of glory and fame; I am not discussing matters pertaining to the arts, which shine with so much brilliance in themselves that the times can neither take much away from them nor bestow much more glory upon them than they intrinsically deserve, but I am speaking rather of those matters pertaining to the lives and customs of men, for which we do not see such clear evidence.

I repeat, therefore, that this general practice of praise and condemnation described above exists, but it is not true that those who engage in it are always in error. It is sometimes necessary for people to make judgements, since human affairs are always in motion and are either on the rise or in decline. It is possible for a city or a province to possess a body politic well organized by some excellent man, and, for a time, by virtue of the skill of such a founder, always to progress toward the better. Anyone, therefore, who is born in such a state and praises ancient times more than modern ones is deceiving himself, and his deception is brought about by those matters that have been discussed above. But those who are born later on in that same city or province after the time of its decline toward the worst has arrived do not, then, deceive themselves. As I reflect upon how these affairs proceed, I conclude that the world has always been in the same state, and that although there has always been as much good as evil in it, this evil and this good vary from province to province; this can be seen from what we know of ancient kingdoms that differed from one another according to the variations in their customs, while the world remained as it always had been. There is only this one difference, that the world first lodged its exceptional ability in Assyria, then moved to Media, and later passed into Persia, and from there it entered Italy and Rome. * If, after the Roman empire, no other empire has followed it that has endured, nor a single place in which the world has gathered together all its exceptional ability, it can be seen nevertheless that this ability has been distributed among many nations where men live ably, such as the kingdom of the Franks, the kingdom of the Turks—that of the Sultan—and, today, the peoples of Germany, and before them that Saracen sect that achieved so many great things and occupied so much of the world that it destroyed the Roman empire of the east. * In all these provinces, therefore, after the Romans came to ruin, as well as in all these sects, this exceptional ability has existed and still exists in those where such ability is still sought after and justly praised. Anyone who is born in these provinces and praises past times more than present ones may be deceiving himself, but whoever is born in Italy or Greece and has not become either an Ultramontane in Italy or a Turk in Greece has reason to condemn his times and to praise others, because in those of the past many things existed that made them marvellous, while in present times nothing whatsoever redeems them from utter misery, infamy, and disgrace, in these places where there is no regard for religion, laws, or the profession of arms but only stains of the worst kind of filth. And these vices are all the more detestable as they are found among those who sit on tribunals, command others, and want to be revered.

But returning to our argument, let me say that if human judgement is corrupted in judging whether the present is better than the ancient past, which, because of its antiquity, men cannot know as perfectly as their own times, it should not be corrupted in those who are older as they judge the periods of their youth and their old age, since they have known and observed both equally. This would be true if men throughout all the periods of their lives retained the same opinions and the same appetites. But since these vary, while the times do not, the same opinions and appetites cannot appear in men, since they have other desires, other pleasures, and other concerns in their old age than those they had in their youth. When men grow older, they lose strength but gain in judgement and prudence, and, of necessity, the things that seemed bearable and good in their youth later come to be unbearable and bad as they grow older, and although they ought to place the blame for this on their own judgement, they blame the times instead. Besides all this, human appetites are insatiable, * for while we are endowed by nature with the power and will to desire everything, and by fortune with the ability to obtain little of it, the result is a continuous discontent in the minds of men and a dissatisfaction with the things they possess; this causes them to condemn present times, to praise the past, and to long for the future, even though they do so without any reasonable motive. I do not know, therefore, whether I deserve to be considered among those who deceive themselves if, in these discourses of mine, I praise too lavishly the times of the ancient Romans and condemn our own. Certainly, if the exceptional ability that prevailed then and the vice that prevails today were not clearer than the sun, I would speak more cautiously for fear of falling into the same deception for which I criticize others. But since the matter is so obvious that everyone can see it, I shall boldly proclaim in an open way what I understand of ancient times and of our own, so that the minds of the young men who will read these writings of mine can avoid the errors of the present and be prepared to imitate the past whenever fortune provides them with the proper occasion. Thus, it is the duty of a good man to teach others the good you yourself were unable to accomplish due to the malignity of the times or to fortune, so that among the many people capable of such actions, some of those more favoured by heaven may accomplish it. And since I have discussed the decisions the Romans took in matters pertaining to their internal affairs in the discourses of the preceding book, in this one we shall speak of those decisions the Roman people made pertaining to the expansion of their empire. *