CHAPTER IV.--That the Dissensions between the Senate and Commons of
Rome, made Rome free and powerful.

Touching those tumults which prevailed in Rome from the extinction of
the Tarquins to the creation of the tribunes the discussion of which I
have no wish to avoid, and as to certain other matters of a like nature,
I desire to say something in opposition to the opinion of many who
assert that Rome was a turbulent city, and had fallen into utter
disorder, that had not her good fortune and military prowess made amends
for other defects, she would have been inferior to every other republic.

I cannot indeed deny that the good fortune and the armies of Rome were
the causes of her empire; yet it certainly seems to me that those
holding this opinion fail to perceive, that in a State where there are
good soldiers there must be good order, and, generally speaking, good
fortune. And looking to the other circumstances of this city, I affirm
that those who condemn these dissensions between the nobles and the
commons, condemn what was the prime cause of Rome becoming free; and
give more heed to the tumult and uproar wherewith these dissensions
were attended, than to the good results which followed from them; not
reflecting that while in every republic there are two conflicting
factions, that of the people and that of the nobles, it is in this
conflict that all laws favourable to freedom have their origin, as may
readily be seen to have been the case in Rome. For from the time of the
Tarquins to that of the Gracchi, a period of over three hundred years,
the tumults in Rome seldom gave occasion to punishment by exile, and
very seldom to bloodshed. So that we cannot truly declare those tumults
to have been disastrous, or that republic to have been disorderly, which