different Nations._
Any one comparing the present with the past will soon perceive that in
all cities and in all nations there prevail the same desires and
passions as always have prevailed; for which reason it should be an
easy matter for him who carefully examines past events, to foresee
those which are about to happen in any republic, and to apply such
remedies as the ancients have used in like cases; or finding none which
have been used by them, to strike out new ones, such as they might have
used in similar circumstances. But these lessons being neglected or not
understood by readers, or, if understood by them, being unknown to
rulers, it follows that the same disorders are common to all times.
In the year 1494 the Republic of Florence, having lost a portion of its
territories, including Pisa and other towns, was forced to make war
against those who had taken possession of them, who being powerful, it
followed that great sums were spent on these wars to little purpose.
This large expenditure had to be met by heavy taxes which gave occasion
to numberless complaints on the part of the people; and inasmuch as the
war was conducted by a council of ten citizens, who were styled “the
Ten of the War,” the multitude began to regard these with displeasure,
as though they were the cause of the war and of the consequent
expenditure; and at last persuaded themselves that if they got rid of
this magistracy there would be an end to the war. Wherefore when the
magistracy of “the Ten” should have been renewed, the people did not
renew it, but, suffering it to lapse, entrusted their affairs to the
“Signory.” This course was most pernicious, since not only did it fail
to put an end to the war, as the people expected it would, but by
setting aside men who had conducted it with prudence, led to such
mishaps that not Pisa only, but Arezzo also, and many other towns
besides were lost to Florence. Whereupon, the people recognizing their
mistake, and that the evil was in the disease and not in the physician,
reinstated the magistracy of the Ten.
Similar dissatisfaction grew up in Rome against the consular authority.
For the people seeing one war follow another, and that they were never
allowed to rest, when they should have ascribed this to the ambition of
neighbouring nations who desired their overthrow, ascribed it to the
ambition of the nobles, who, as they believed, being unable to wreak
their hatred against them within the city, where they were protected by
the power of the tribunes, sought to lead them outside the city, where
they were under the authority of the consuls, that they might crush
them where they were without help. In which belief they thought it
necessary either to get rid of the consuls altogether, or so to
restrict their powers as to leave them no authority over the people,
either in the city or out of it.
The first who attempted to pass a law to this effect was the tribune
Terentillus, who proposed that a committee of five should be named to
consider and regulate the power of the consuls. This roused the anger
of the nobles, to whom it seemed that the greatness of their authority
was about to set for ever, and that no part would be left them in the
administration of the republic. Such, however, was the obstinacy of the
tribunes, that they succeeded in abolishing the consular title, nor
were satisfied until, after other changes, it was resolved that, in
room of consuls, tribunes should be appointed with consular powers; so
much greater was their hatred of the name than of the thing. For a long
time matters remained on this footing; till eventually, the commons,
discovering their mistake, resumed the appointment of consuls in the
same way as the Florentines reverted to “the Ten of the War.”