I am not unaware that people at
entertainments and social gatherings condemn all this and demand some
restric-
tion. But if a law
were to be passed and a penalty imposed, those very same persons will cry
out that the State is revolutionised, that ruin is plotted against all our
most brilliant fashion, that not a citizen is safe from incrimination. Yet
as even bodily disorders of long standing and growth can be checked only by
sharp and painful treatment, so the fever of a diseased mind, itself
polluted and a pollution to others, can be quenched only by remedies as
strong as the passions which inflame it. Of the many laws devised by our
ancestors, of the many passed by the Divine Augustus, the first have been
forgotten, while his (all the more to our disgrace) have become obsolete
through contempt, and this has made luxury bolder than ever. The truth is,
that when one craves something not yet forbidden, there is a fear that it
may be forbidden; but when people once transgress prohibitions with
impunity, there is no longer any fear or any shame.
Why then in old
times was economy in the ascendant? Because every one practised
self-control; because we were all members of one city. Nor even afterwards
had we the same temptations, while our dominion was confined to
Italy. Victories over the foreigner taught us how to
waste the substance of others; victories over ourselves, how to squander our
own. What a paltry matter is this of which the ædiles are reminding
us! What a mere trifle if you look at everything else! No one represents to
the Senate that
Italy requires supplies from abroad,
and that the very existence of the people of
Rome is
daily at the mercy of uncertain waves and storms. And unless masters,
slaves, and estates have the resources of the provinces as their mainstay,
our shrubberies, forsooth, and our country houses will have to support
us.
Such, Senators, are the anxieties which the prince has to sustain,
and the neglect of them will be utter ruin to the State. The cure for other
evils must be sought in our own hearts. Let us be led to amendment, the poor
by constraint, the rich by satiety. Or if any of our officials give promise
of such energy and strictness as can stem the corruption, I praise the man,
and I confess that I am relieved of a portion of my burdens. But if they
wish to denounce vice, and when they have gained credit for so doing they
arouse resentments and leave them to me, be assured, Senators, that I too
am
by no means eager to incur enmities, and though for the public
good I encounter formidable and often unjust enmities, yet I have a right to
decline such as are unmeaning and purposeless and will be of use neither to
myself nor to you.
