In Rome, after the expulsion of the Tarquins, it seemed as though the
closest union prevailed between the senate and the commons, and that
the nobles, laying aside their natural arrogance, had learned so to
sympathize with the people as to have become supportable by all, even
of the humblest rank. This dissimulation remained undetected, and its
causes concealed, while the Tarquins lived; for the nobles dreading the
Tarquins, and fearing that the people, if they used them ill, might take
part against them, treated them with kindness. But no sooner were the
Tarquins got rid of, and the nobles thus relieved of their fears, when
they began to spit forth against the commons all the venom which before
they had kept in their breasts, offending and insulting them in every
way they could; confirming what I have observed already, that men never
behave well unless compelled, and that whenever they are free to act as
they please, and are under no restraint everything falls at once into
confusion and disorder. Wherefore it has been said that as poverty and
hunger are needed to make men industrious, so laws are needed to make
them good. When we do well without laws, laws are not needed; but when
good customs are absent, laws are at once required.

On the extinction of the Tarquins, therefore, the dread of whom had
kept the nobles in check, some new safeguard had to be contrived, which
should effect the same result as had been effected by the Tarquins while
they lived. Accordingly, after much uproar and confusion, and much
danger of violence ensuing between the commons and the nobles, to insure
the safety of the former, tribunes were created, and were invested with
such station and authority as always afterwards enabled them to stand
between the people and the senate, and to resist the insolence of the
nobles.