Their greatest men tooke to farme their basest tributes before mentioned, & worse then those, yea and sued for them, Non aliter quam militarem aliquam praefecturam aut civilem Magistratum, they bee the words of Euagrius, none otherwise then it had beene some great Com∣maund * in the warres, or some principall office in the City. This was most dishonest, yet I know not whether that which followes were not more dishonou∣rable. The other was that the Senate hauing taken great summes of money of cer∣taine tributary Cities to make them free, forced them afterward to pay their old tribute without restoring vnto them the money they had paid for their freedome which saith Cicero was turpe imperio, a shame to their Empire, Piratarum enim melior fuit fides quam Senatus, for the faith of pi∣rats * was better then the faith of the Senate. And this well appeared in two publique Acts of theirs, the one was, that a peece of Land being in controversie betweene the Ardeatines and the Aricinians, they both by joint con∣sent * referred themselues to the arbitration of the Romanes, binding thē∣selues to stand to their award: but they adjudg'd it to themselues. And with him accords Mithridates in Iustin, Non temerè se lupi vberibus alitos * jactare, omnet enim habere luporum animos inexplebiles, sanguinis, imperij, di∣vitiarumque avidos esse & jejunos that they did not without reason boast themselues to be nourished from the dugg of a shee wolfe, inasmuch as they haue all of them insatiable mindes of wolues, greedily thirsting after Empire, bloud and riches. That the whole Nation was deepely infected with the same vice.ĪNd to speake a truth, the whole body of this people was so farre possessed with this dropsie, that Salvianus makes it their Natio∣nall * disease, Avaritiae inhumanitas proprium Romanorum malum, inhumane covetousnesse is the disease proper to all the Romanes.

Pecunia malum