CHAPTER XXIV

THE PROLONGATION OF [MILITARY] COMMANDS MADE ROME SLAVE

If the proceedings of the Roman Republic is considered well, two things will be seen to have been the causes of the dissolution of that Republic: the one was the contentions that arose from the Agrarian law, the other the prolongation of the [military] Commands; if these matters had been well understood from the beginning, and proper remedies taken she would have existed free longer, and perhaps more tranquil. And although it is seen that the prolongation of Commands never caused any tumult to arise, none the less facts show how much that authority which the citizens took because of such decisions was harmful to the City. And if the other citizens for whom the Magistracy was prolonged had been wise and good, as was L. Quintius, this inconvenience would not have incurred. His goodness is a notable example; for when the terms of an accord were completed between the Plebs and the Senate, and the Plebs having prolonged the Commands of the Tribunes for a year, because they judged it would help to enable them to resist the ambitions of the Nobles, the Senate wanted, in competition with the Plebs not to appear less [powerful] than they, to prolong the Consulship of L. Quintius; but he completely negated this decision, saying that they should seek to destroy the evil example not to increase their number with other worse examples, and he desired they create new Consuls. If this goodness and prudence had existed in all the Roman citizens, they would never have allowed that custom of prolonging the Magistracies to be introduced, which in time ruined that Republic.

The first to whom the Command was extended was P. Philo, who being at the siege of the City of Paleopolis, and the end of his Consulship having arrived, and as it appeared to the Senate that he had the victory in hand, they did not send him a successor but made him Proconsul. So that he was the first Proconsul. Which thing (although it was moved by the Senate as being useful to the public) was what in time brought Rome to servitude. For the further away the Romans sent their armies [from Rome], so much more did such prolongations appear necessary, and the more they employed them. This caused two evils. The one, that a smaller number of men were given experience in the Command [of armies], and, because of this, reputation [authority] came to be restricted to a few: the other, that a citizen being a command of an army for a long time, he gained it over to himself and made it his partisan, for that army in time forgot the Senate and recognized him as chief. Because of this Sulla and Marius were able to find soldiers willing to follow them against the public good. Because of this Caesar was able to seize the country. Thus, if the Romans had not prolonged the Magistracies and Commands, although she would not have come to so great power, and her conquests would have been slower, she would also have come to her servitude more slowly.