# CHAPTER 36 — Citizens Who Have Held the Highest Offices Should Not Disdain the Lesser Ones

The Romans had made Marcus Fabius and G. Manlius consuls and had won a most glorious victory over the Veientes and the Etruscans, during which Quintus Fabius, brother of the consul, who had served as consul the year before, died. At this point, it should be observed how capable that city’s institutions were of making it great and how mistaken other republics are that depart from its practices. Even though the Romans were great lovers of glory, they nevertheless did not deem it dishonourable to obey someone today who on other occasions they had commanded, or to find themselves serving in an army in which they had formerly been commanders. This custom is contrary to the opinion, institutions, and practices of citizens of our times: in Venice they still make the mistake of allowing a citizen who once obtained a high rank and is ashamed of accepting a lower one, to step aside. Although such a course may be honourable for a private citizen, it has no benefits whatsoever for the public, because a republic should have more hope and place more confidence in a citizen who from a high rank descends to hold a lower one than in a citizen who rises from a lower rank to hold a greater one, for it is not reasonable to believe in the latter, unless he is surrounded by men of such authority or exceptional ability that his inexperience may be moderated by their counsel and authority. If the same custom had existed in Rome as in Venice and other modern republics and kingdoms, that whoever had been consul on one occasion would never agree to enter the army unless he were consul, countless events inimical to a free way of life would have arisen, both because of the errors that inexperienced men would have committed and because of the ambition that they would have been better able to display, lacking men around them in whose presence they would fear to go astray, and thus they would have come to be more unrestrained, which would have been entirely to the detriment of the public.