# CHAPTER 2 — What Kinds of Peoples the Romans Had to Fight, and How Stubbornly These Peoples Defended Their Liberty

Nothing made it more difficult for the Romans to overcome the surrounding peoples and parts of the more distant provinces than the love many peoples in those times had for liberty, which they defended so stubbornly that they would never have been subjugated except by extraordinary ability. The dangers to which they exposed themselves to preserve or to regain their liberty, and the revenge they took against those who had deprived them of it are known through many examples. The lessons of history also teach us the injuries those peoples and their cities suffered because of their servitude. Whereas in our own times only a single province can be said to contain within it free cities, in ancient times many entirely free peoples lived throughout the provinces. * It is evident that in those times which we are presently discussing, throughout Italy, from the Alps that now divide Tuscany from Lombardy down to the toe of Italy, all the peoples were free, as were the Etruscans, the Romans, the Samnites, and many other peoples who lived in the rest of Italy. Nor has it ever been argued that there was any king other than those who reigned in Rome and Porsenna, king of the Etruscans, the extinction of whose lineage is not explained by history. But it is quite evident that in those times when the Romans went to lay siege to Veii, Etruria was free, and it took such pleasure in its liberty and so hated the very name of prince that when the Veientes created a king in Veii for their defence and asked the Etruscans for assistance against the Romans, the Etruscans, after much consultation, decided not to give help to the Veientes as long as they lived under a king, judging that it was not good policy to defend the native city of those who had already made it subject to someone else. It is easy to understand how this affection for a free way of life arose in those peoples, because experience demonstrates that cities have never enlarged their dominion or increased their wealth unless they have lived in liberty. It is truly a marvellous thing to consider what greatness Athens achieved in the space of one hundred years after the city freed itself from the tyranny of Pisistratus. * But it is even more wondrous to consider how much greatness Rome achieved after it freed itself of its kings. The reason is easy to understand, because it is not the private good but the common good that makes cities great. And without any doubt, this common good is pursued only in a republic, because everything that meets its needs is carried out, and however much harm might be done to this or that private individual, there are so many who benefit from this common good that they are able to promote it, despite the inclination of the few who are oppressed by it. The opposite occurs when there is a prince, for in most cases whatever works to his benefit harms the city, while whatever works to the city’s benefit harms him. As a result, as soon as a tyranny arises to replace a free government, the least amount of harm that may occur in such cities is that they no longer move forward or grow either in power or wealth; in most cases—actually, in all of them—it happens that such cities go into decline. And if fate might act in such a way that a tyrant of exceptional ability were to arise, whose boldness and skill at arms might increase his dominion, this would result in no benefit to the republic but, rather, to him alone, because he cannot honour any of the citizens over whom he exerts his tyranny, no matter how brave or good they might be, since he will not wish to be suspicious of them. Nor can he subjugate or make the cities he conquers tributaries to the city in which he acts as tyrant, since making the city powerful does not work to his benefit, but rather it works to his benefit to keep the state disunited and to have each city and province acknowledge him alone. In such a way, only he profits from his acquisitions and not his native city. And anyone who wishes to confirm this opinion with countless other arguments should read Xenophon’s treatise entitled On Tyranny * It is not surprising, therefore, that ancient peoples persecuted their tyrants with such hatred and loved a free way of life, and that the very name of liberty was so revered by them. This was the case when Hieronymus, the grandson of Hiero of Syracuse, was assassinated in Syracuse, for when the news of his death reached his army, which was not far from Syracuse, the troops first began to run riot and to take up arms against his killers, but when they heard that in Syracuse the word ‘liberty’ was being proclaimed, they calmed down completely, captivated by that name, and putting aside their anger against the tyrannicides, they began considering how a free way of life might be organized in that city. It is also no wonder that such peoples carried out extraordinary acts of revenge against those who had deprived them of liberty. There have been numerous examples of this, but I shall refer only to one of them, which occurred in Corcyra, a Greek city, during the Peloponnesian War; Greece was at that time divided into two factions, one of which followed the Athenians and the other the Spartans, and as a result, in many cities that were divided between the two factions, one faction sought Sparta’s friendship, and the other that of Athens; and it happened that in Corcyra the nobles prevailed and took away the people’s freedom, but the popular party, with Athenian assistance, regrouped their forces, and after they had laid hands on all the nobility they locked them inside a prison large enough to hold them all; from which they then took them out, eight or ten at a time, under the guise of sending them into exile in different places, and put them to death in many cruel ways. When those who remained realized what was taking place, they decided, in so far as it was possible, to avoid such an ignominious death, and arming themselves as best they could, they fought with those who tried to enter, defending the entrance to the prison, so that when the people heard the noise, coming together, they exposed the upper part of the building and suffocated the prisoners under the debris. * Many other similar horrible and noteworthy events subsequently took place in that province, and this clearly demonstrates how the liberty that has been taken from you is avenged with greater ferocity than the liberty that someone tried to take away from you. *

In considering, therefore, why all the peoples of ancient times were greater lovers of liberty than those of our own day, I believe this arises from the same cause that today makes men less strong, which I believe lies in the difference between our education and that of antiquity, based upon the difference between our religion and that of antiquity. For, while our religion has shown us truth and the true path, it also makes us place a lower value on worldly honour, whereas the pagans, * who greatly valued honour and considered it the highest good, were more ferocious in their actions. This can be seen in many of their customs, beginning with the magnificence of their sacrifices as compared to the modesty of our own, in which there is some pomp that is more delicate than magnificent but no bold or ferocious action. In their rites neither pomp nor magnificence was lacking in the ceremonies, but there was, in addition, the act of sacrifice full of blood and cruelty, and the slaughter of a great number of animals, a spectacle which inspired awe and rendered the men who witnessed it equally awesome. Besides this, ancient religion beatified only men fully possessed of worldly glory, such as the leaders of armies and the rulers of republics. Our religion has more often glorified humble and contemplative men rather than active ones. Moreover, our religion has defined the supreme good as humility, abjection, and contempt of worldly things; ancient religion located it in greatness of mind, strength of body, and in all the other things apt to make men the strongest. And if our religion requires that you have inner strength, it wants you to have the capacity to endure suffering more than to undertake brave deeds. This way of living seems, therefore, to have made the world weak and to have given it over to be plundered by wicked men, who are easily able to dominate it, since in order to go to paradise, most men think more about enduring their pains than about avenging them. Although it appears that the world has become soft and heaven has been disarmed, without a doubt this arises more from the cowardice of men who have interpreted our religion according to an ideal of freedom from earthly toil and not according to one of exceptional ability. For if they would consider how our religion permits us to exalt and defend our native land, they would see that it also wants us to love and honour it and to prepare ourselves in such a way that we can defend it. It is, therefore, that other type of education and these false interpretations that explain why we no longer find as many republics in the world as existed in ancient times, nor, as a consequence, as much love of liberty among the peoples as there was then. Yet, I also believe the reason for this to be that the Roman empire with its arms and its grandeur destroyed all the republics and all the self-governing states. Although this empire later disintegrated, the cities have still not been able to regroup themselves again nor to reorganize themselves into a body politic except for a very few places within that empire. Still, be that as it may, in even the very remotest parts of the globe the Romans encountered alliances among republics that were extremely well armed and obstinate in the defence of their liberty. This demonstrates that the Roman people would never have been able to overcome such republics without rare and extraordinary ability.

To give an example of a member of such a confederation, I want that of the Samnites to suffice: it seems a marvellous thing, and Livy admits it, that the Samnites were so powerful and their armed strength so effective that they were able to resist the Romans until the time of the consul Papirius Cursor, son of the first Papirius (which was a space of forty-six years), following many defeats, the destruction of their lands, and many massacres within their own territory; especially if one sees that this land, where there were so many cities and men, is today almost uninhabited, since at that time it was so well organized and had so much strength that it would have been invincible had it not been assaulted by Roman skill. * It is easy to discern the origins of such order and such disorder, because it all comes from living at one time in a free society and then in one that is servile. As I said above, all countries and provinces living in liberty have gained enormous advantages from it, because wherever there is a larger population, marriages are easier and more desirable on the part of men; since each man willingly procreates those children he believes he can support without fearing that their patrimony will be taken away from them and knowing not only that they will be born free and not as slaves, but that they may, through their own exceptional ability, become leaders in the city. Wealth will be seen to increase more rapidly there, both that which derives from agriculture and that from crafts and trade, because each man more willingly increases those things and seeks to acquire those goods that he believes, once acquired, he can enjoy. Thus, it comes about that men competing with each other think about both private and public benefits, and both increase at a miraculous rate.

The opposite of all these things follows in those countries that live in servitude; the further away they move from their accustomed good, the harsher is their servitude. And of all the harshest forms of servitude, the most harsh is that which subjugates you to a republic: first, because it is the most long-lasting and offers less hope of escaping from it; secondly, because the goal of a republic is to enervate and weaken all other bodies in order to strengthen its own. This is not done by a prince who subjugates you, as long as this prince is not some barbarian ruler or a destroyer of lands and a devastator of all human civilization, like the oriental rulers. But, if such a prince possesses humane and ordinary methods, in most instances he will love his subject cities equally and leave to them all their crafts and almost all their ancient institutions. As a result, although they are unable to grow as if they were free, they will not come to ruin as if they were enslaved, and here I mean the kind of servitude which develops in cities subject to a foreigner, since I spoke earlier about those cities subjugated to one of their own citizens. Anyone, therefore, who considers everything that has been said will not be amazed at the power the Samnites possessed when they were free and at their weakness when they subsequently fell into servitude, and Livy testifies to this fact in more than one passage, and especially in discussing the war with Hannibal, where he shows that when the Samnites were oppressed by a legion of men stationed in Nola, they sent ambassadors to Hannibal to beg him to come to their rescue; in their speech, these ambassadors stated that they had fought with the Romans with their own troops and their own commanders for a hundred years, and on many occasions they had withstood two consular armies and two consuls, but now they had come to such a sorry state that they could hardly defend themselves from a small Roman legion in Nola.