CHAPTER XXIII.--_That in chastising their Subjects when circumstances
required it the Romans always avoided half-measures._

"Such _was now the state of affairs in Latium, that peace and war
seemed alike intolerable_." No worse calamity can befall a prince or
commonwealth than to be reduced to such straits that they can neither
accept peace nor support war; as is the case with those whom it would
ruin to conclude peace on the terms offered, while war obliges them
either to yield themselves a spoil to their allies, or remain a prey to
their foes. To this grievous alternative are men led by evil counsels
and unwise courses, and, as already said, from not rightly measuring
their strength. For the commonwealth or prince who has rightly measured
his strength, can hardly be brought so low as were the Latins, who made
war with the Romans when they should have made terms, and made terms
when they should have made war, and so mismanaged everything that the
friendship and the enmity of Rome were alike fatal. Whence it came that,
in the first place, they were defeated and broken by Manlius Torquatus,
and afterwards utterly subdued by Camillus; who, when he had forced them
to surrender at discretion to the Roman arms, and had placed garrisons
in all their towns, and taken hostages from all, returned to Rome and
reported to the senate that the whole of Latium now lay at their mercy.

And because the sentence then passed by the senate is memorable, and
worthy to be studied by princes that it may be imitated by them on like
occasion, I shall cite the exact words which Livius puts into the mouth
of Camillus, as confirming what I have already said touching the
methods used by the Romans to extend their power, and as showing how in
chastising their subjects they always avoided half-measures and took