CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
ON THE EASE WITH WHICH MEN CAN BE CORRUPTED

It is also worth noting, concerning the Decemvirate, how easily men can be corrupted and made to assume an altogether different nature, no matter how good or educated they might be.¹¹⁷ Consider how the young men with whom Appius surrounded himself became supporters of his tyranny for the scant benefits it brought them, or how Quintus Fabius, one of the second group of Decemvirs and an excellent man, was blinded by ambition and persuaded by Appius’s evil ways, turning from good to bad and becoming like him.¹¹⁸ Were lawgivers in republics or kingdoms to examine this matter carefully, they would be more ready to put a check on men’s appetites and deprive them of the hope of transgressing without punishment.

117. In 449 BCE, the Decemvirs were forced to abdicate, as they had become tyrannical.

118. Livy (Book III, chapter 41) writes: “The foremost among the Decemvirs were Quintus Fabius and Appius Claudius. […] Fabius’s character was deficient in soundness and integrity rather than actively evil. In fact this man, formerly distinguished at home and on the battlefield, was so changed by the Decemvirate and his colleagues that he chose to be like Appius rather than be himself.”