For that Camillus had stood more
firm against the ruin of Rome than her capitol, was acknowledged;
but on the other side, that he stood as firm for the patricians
against the liberty of the people, was as plain; wherefore he
never wanted those of the people that would die at his foot in
the field, nor that would withstand him to his beard in the city.
An example in which they that think Camillus had wrong, neither
do themselves right, nor the people of Rome; who in this signify
no less than that they had a scorn of slavery beyond the fear of
ruin, which is the height of magnanimity.
The like might be shown by other examples objected against
this and other popular governments, as in the banishment of
Aristides the Just from Athens, by the ostracism, which, first,
was no punishment, nor ever understood for so much as a
disparagement; but tended only to the security of the
commonwealth, through the removal of a citizen (whose riches or
power with a party was suspected) out of harm's way for the space
of ten years, neither to the diminution of his estate or honor.
And next, though the virtue of Aristides might in itself be
unquestioned, yet for him under the name of the Just to become
universal umpire of the people in all cases, even to the neglect
of the legal ways and orders of the commonwealth, approached so
much to the prince, that the Athenians, doing Aristides no wrong,
did their government no more than right in removing him; which
therefore is not so probable to have come to pass, as Plutarch
presumes, through the envy of Themistocles, seeing Aristides was
far more popular than Themistocles, who soon after took the same
walk upon a worse occasion.
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