their Citizens than were the Athenians_.
In the histories of all republics we meet with instances of some sort
of ingratitude to their great citizens, but fewer in the history of
Rome than of Athens, or indeed of any other republic. Searching for the
cause of this, I am persuaded that, so far as regards Rome and Athens,
it was due to the Romans having had less occasion than the Athenians to
look upon their fellow-citizens with suspicion. For, from the expulsion
of her kings down to the times of Sylla and Marius, the liberty of Rome
was never subverted by any one of her citizens; so that there never was
in that city grave cause for distrusting any man, and in consequence
making him the victim of inconsiderate injustice. The reverse was
notoriously the case with Athens; for that city, having, at a time when
she was most flourishing, been deprived of her freedom by Pisistratus
under a false show of good-will, remembering, after she regained her
liberty, her former bondage and all the wrongs she had endured, became
the relentless chastiser, not of offences only on the part of her
citizens, but even of the shadow of an offence. Hence the banishment
and death of so many excellent men, and hence the law of ostracism, and
all those other violent measures which from time to time during the
history of that city were directed against her foremost citizens. For
this is most true which is asserted by the writers on civil government,
that a people which has recovered its freedom, bites more fiercely than
one which has always preserved it.
And any who shall weigh well what has been said, will not condemn
Athens in this matter, nor commend Rome, but refer all to the necessity
arising out of the different conditions prevailing in the two States.
For careful reflection will show that had Rome been deprived of her
freedom as Athens was, she would not have been a whit more tender to
her citizens. This we may reasonably infer from remarking what, after
the expulsion of the kings, befell Collatinus and Publius Valerius; the
former of whom, though he had taken part in the liberation of Rome, was
sent into exile for no other reason than that he bore the name of
Tarquin; while the sole ground of suspicion against the latter, and
what almost led to his banishment, was his having built a house upon
the Cælian hill. Seeing how harsh and suspicious Rome was in these two
instances, we may surmise that she would have shown the same
ingratitude as Athens, had she, like Athens, been wronged by her
citizens at an early stage of her growth, and before she had attained
to the fulness of her strength.
That I may not have to return to this question of ingratitude, I shall
say all that remains to be said about it in my next Chapter.