justice which she had suffered to grow rusted by neglect. This is well
seen from those passages of Livius wherein he tells us that when the
Roman army was 'sent forth against the Gauls, and again when tribunes
were created with consular authority, no religious rites whatever were
celebrated, and wherein he further relates how the Romans not only
failed to punish the three Fabii, who contrary to the law of nations had
fought against the Gauls, but even clothed them with honour. For, from
these instances, we may well infer that the rest of the wise ordinances
instituted by Romulus, and the other prudent kings, had begun to be held
of less account than they deserved, and less than was essential for the
maintenance of good government.

And therefore it was that Rome was visited by this calamity from
without, to the end that all her ordinances might be reformed, and the
people taught that it behoved them not only to maintain religion and
justice, but also to esteem their worthy citizens, and to prize their
virtues beyond any advantages of which they themselves might seem to
have been deprived at their instance. And this, we find, was just the
effect produced. For no sooner was the city retaken, than all the
ordinances of the old religion were at once restored; the Fabii, who had
fought in violation of the law of nations, were punished; and the worth
and excellence of Camillus so fully recognized, that the senate and the
whole people, laying all jealousies aside, once more committed to him
the entire charge of public affairs.

It is necessary then, as I have said already, that where men dwell
together in a regulated society, they be often reminded of those
ordinances in conformity with which they ought to live, either by
something inherent in these, or else by some external accident. A
reminder is given in the former of these two ways, either by the passing