answered evasively that it was needless to tell them what they already
knew. Whereupon the dictator ordered him to prison.

In this passage we are taught how hateful a thing is calumny in all free
States, as, indeed, in every society, and how we must neglect no means
which may serve to check it. And there can be no more effectual means
for checking calumny than by affording ample facilities for impeachment,
which is as useful in a commonwealth as the other is pernicious. And
between them there is this difference, that calumny needs neither
witness, nor circumstantial proof to establish it, so that any man
may be calumniated by any other; but not impeached; since impeachment
demands that there be substantive charges made, and trustworthy evidence
to support them. Again, it is before the magistrates, the people, or the
courts of justice that men are impeached; but in the streets and market
places that they are calumniated. Calumny, therefore, is most rife in
that State wherein impeachment is least practised, and the laws least
favour it. For which reasons the legislator should so shape the laws
of his State that it shall be possible therein to impeach any of its
citizens without fear or favour; and, after duly providing for this,
should visit calumniators with the sharpest punishments. Those punished
will have no cause to complain, since it was in their power to have
impeached openly where they have secretly calumniated. Where this is not
seen to, grave disorders will always ensue. For calumnies sting without
disabling; and those who are stung being more moved by hatred of their
detractors than by fear of the things they say against them, seek
revenge.

This matter, as we have said, was well arranged for in Rome, but has
always been badly regulated in our city of Florence. And as the Roman
ordinances with regard to it were productive of much good, so the want