" When the consuls
Quintus and Agrippa were sent against the AEqui, Agrippa for this
reason refused to go with his colleague, saying: "That in the
administration of great actions it was most safe that the chief
command should be lodged in one person." And if the ruin of
modern armies were well considered, most of it would be found to
have fallen upon this point, it being in this case far safer to
trust to any one man of common prudence, than to any two or more
together of the greatest parts.' The consuls indeed, being equal
in power, while one was present with the Senate, and the other in
the field with the army, made a good balance; and this with us is
exactly followed by the election of a new strategus upon the
march of the old one.
"The seven-and-twentieth order, whereby the elders in case of
invasion are obliged to equal duty with the youth, and each upon
their own charge, is suitable to reason (for every man defends
his own estate) and to our copy, as in the war with the Samnites
and Tuscans. 'The Senate ordered a vacation to be proclaimed, and
a levy to be made of all sorts of persons, and not only the
freemen and youths were listed, but cohorts of the old men were
likewise formed.' This nation of all others is the least
obnoxious to invasion. Oceana, says a French politician, is a
beast that cannot be devoured but by herself.
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