Discourses on Livy coverCHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 49

BOOK III

CHAPTER XLIX

CHAPTER 49Visible text2 paragraphs
That a commonwealth to preserve its freedom has constant need of new ordinances. Of the services in respect of which Quintius Fabius received the surname of Maximus.
It must happen, as I have already said, in every great city, that disorders needing the care of the physician continually spring up; and the graver these disorders are, the greater will be the skill needed for their treatment. And if ever in any city, most assuredly in Rome, we see these disorders assume strange and unexpected shapes. As when it appeared that all the Roman wives had conspired to murder their husbands, many of them being found to have actually administered poison, and many others to have drugs in readiness for the purpose.