“If then, by chance, some reverend chief appear,
 Known for his deeds and for his virtues dear,
 Silent they wait his words and bend a listening ear."[1]

He therefore who commands an army or governs a city wherein tumult shall have broken out, ought to assume the noblest and bravest bearing he can, and clothe himself with all the ensigns of his station, that he may make himself more revered.  It is not many years since Florence was divided into two factions, the Frateschi and Arrabbiati, as they were named, and these coming to open violence, the Frateschi, among whom was Pagolo Antonio Soderini, a citizen of great reputation in these days, were worsted.  In the course of these disturbances the people coming with arms in their hands to plunder the house of Soderini, his brother Messer Francesco, then bishop of Volterra and now cardinal, who happened to be dwelling there, so soon as he heard the uproar and saw the crowd, putting on his best apparel and over it his episcopal robes, went forth to meet the armed multitude, and by his words and mien brought them to a stay; and for many days his behaviour was commended by the whole city.  The inference from all which is, that there is no surer or more necessary restraint on the violence of an unruly multitude, than the presence of some one whose character and bearing command respect.

But to return once more to the passage we are considering, we see how stubbornly the people clung to this scheme of transplanting themselves to Veii, thinking it for their advantage, and not discerning the mischief really involved in it; so that in addition to the many dissensions which it occasioned, actual violence must have followed, had not the senate with the aid of certain grave and reverend citizens repressed the popular fury.

 [Footnote 1:  Tum pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem
 Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant. Virg.  Aen., I. 154.]

CHAPTER LV.—­That Government is easily carried on in a City wherein the body of the People is not corrupted:  and that a Princedom is impossible where Equality prevails, and a Republic where it does not.

Though what we have to fear or hope from cities that have grown corrupted has already been discussed, still I think it not out of place to notice a resolution passed by the senate touching the vow which Camillus made to Apollo of a tenth of the spoil taken from the Veientines.  For this spoil having fallen into the hands of the people, the senate, being unable by other means to get any account of it, passed an edict that every man should publicly offer one tenth part of what he had taken.  And although this edict was not carried out, from the senate having afterwards followed a different course, whereby, to the content of the people, the claim of Apollo was otherwise satisfied, we nevertheless see from their having entertained such a proposal, how completely