are mistaken; and are led through their mistake to adopt courses
unprofitable for themselves and affording no content to others. Whence,
the frequent rebellions and the downfall of States.

But, returning to our subject, I conclude, as well from this instance of
Privernum, as from the measures followed with the Latins, that when
we have to pass sentence upon powerful States accustomed to live in
freedom, we must either destroy them utterly, or else treat them with
much indulgence; and that any other course we may take with them will be
unprofitable. But most carefully should we avoid, as of all courses the
most pernicious, such half-measures as were followed by the Samnites
when they had the Romans shut up in the Caudine Forks, and would not
listen to the counsels of the old man who urged them either to send
their captives away with every honourable attention, or else put them
all to death; but adopted a middle course, and after disarming them
and making them pass under the yoke, suffered them to depart at once
disgraced and angered. And no long time after, they found to their
sorrow that the old man's warning was true, and that the course they had
themselves chosen was calamitous; as shall, hereafter, in its place be
shown.



CHAPTER XXIV.--_That, commonly, Fortresses do much more Harm than
Good_

To the wise men of our day it may seem an oversight on the part of the
Romans, that, when they sought to protect themselves against the men of
Latium and Privernum, it never occurred to them to build strongholds
in their cities to be a curb upon them, and insure their fidelity,