CHAPTER L

A COUNCIL OR MAGISTRATE OUGHT NOT TO BE ABLE TO STOP THE ACTIVITIES OF A CITY

When T. Quintus Cincinnatus and Gnaius Julius Mentus were Consuls in Rome, being disunited, they stopped all the activities of that Republic. When the Senate saw this, they advised the creation of a Dictator, in order that he do that which, because of their [Consuls] discords, they could not do. But the Consuls disagreeing on every other thing, were in accord only on this: not to want to create a Dictator. So that the Senate not having any other remedy had recourse to the aid of the Tribunes, who, with the authority of the Senate, forced the Consuls to obey. Here first is to be noted the usefulness of the Tribunes, who were not only useful in restraining the ambitions which the powerful had against the Plebs, but also that which they employed among themselves. The other, that there ought never to be established in a City the ability of a few to interrupt any of its decisions which are ordinarily necessary in maintaining the Republic. For instance, if you give authority to a Council to make a distribution of honors and offices, or to a Magistracy the administration of a business, it is proper either to impose on them the necessity that they must do it in any case, or to arrange that if they did not want to do it themselves, that another can and ought to do it: otherwise this constitution would be defective and dangerous, as was seen it was in Rome, if the authority of the Tribunes could not have been opposed to the obstinacy of those Consuls.

In the Venetian Republic, the grand Council distributes the honors and offices. It sometimes happened that the general public, either from contempt or from some false suggestions, did not create the successors to the Magistrates of the City and to those who administered their outside Empire. This resulted in a very great disorder, because suddenly both the subject lands and the City itself lacked their legitimate judges, nor could they obtain anything if the majority of that council were not satisfied or deceived. And this inconvenience would have brought that City to a bad end if it had not been foreseen by the prudent Citizens, who taking a convenient opportunity made a law that all the Magistrates who are or should be inside or outside the City should never vacate their offices until exchanges with their successors were made. And thus was removed from that council the evil of being able with peril to the Republic to stop public activities.