their own dissensions; and for the sake of the respite many prominent
men on several occasions brought on these conflicts purposely. This,
then, was the beginning of their suffering more harm from each other
than from outside nations. And the complexion of their difficulties
inspires me to pronounce that it was impossible that they should be
deprived of either their power or their sway, unless they should lose
it through their own contentions. (Mai, ib.)

2. They were especially irritated that the senators were not of the
same mind after obtaining something from them as they were while
requesting it, but after making them numbers of great promises while
in the midst of danger failed to perform the slightest one of them
when safety had been secured. (Mai, p.143.)

3. So to the end that they might not fight in a compact mass, but each
division struggle separately for its own position and so become easier
to handle, they divided the army. [Footnote: Cp. Livy, II, 30.] (Ib.)

4. ¶The populace, as soon as Valerius the dictator became a private
citizen, began a most bitter contest, going so far even as to overturn
the government. The well-to-do classes insisted, in the case of debts,
upon the very letter of the agreement, refusing to abate one iota of
it, and so they both failed to secure its fulfillment and came to be
deprived of many other advantages; they had failed to recognize the
fact that an extreme of poverty is the heaviest of curses and that the
desperation which results from it is, especially if shared by a large
number of persons, very difficult to combat. This is why not a few
politicians voluntarily choose the course which is expedient in
preference to that which is absolutely just. Justice is often worsted
in an encounter with human nature and sometimes suffers total