And yet
bodily diseases grown inveterate and strengthened by time, cannot be
checked but by medicines rigid and violent: it is the same with the soul:
the sick and raging soul, itself corrupted and scattering its corruption,
is not to be qualified but by remedies equally strong with its own flaming
lusts. So many laws made by our ancestors, so many added by the deified
Augustus; the former being lost in oblivion, and (which is more heinous)
the latter in contempt, have only served to render luxury more secure.
When we covet a thing yet unforbid, we are apt to fear that it may be
forbid; but when once we can with impunity and defiance overleap
prohibited bounds, there remains afterwards nor fear nor shame. How
therefore did parsimony prevail of old? It was because, every one was a
law to himself; it was because we were then only masters of one city: nor
afterwards, while our dominion was confined only to Italy, had we found
the same instigations to voluptuousness. By foreign conquests, we learned
to waste the property of others; and in the Civil Wars, to consume our
own. What a mighty matter is it that the Aediles remonstrate! how little
to be weighed in the balance with others? It is wonderful that nobody
represents, that Italy is in constant want of foreign supplies; that the
lives of the Roman People are daily at the mercy of uncertain seas and of
tempests: were it not for our supports from the provinces; supports, by
which the masters, and their slaves, and their estates, are maintained;
would our own groves and villas maintain us? This care therefore,
Conscript Fathers, is the business of the Prince; and by the neglect of
this care, the foundations of the State would be dissolved.
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