Our ancestors, therefore, said Scipio, acted wisely.[312] * * *
XLI. When the people is deprived of a just king, as Ennius says, after the death of one of the best of monarchs,
They hold his memory dear, and, in the warmth
Of their discourse, they cry, O Romulus!
O prince divine, sprung from the might of Mars
To be thy country’s guardian! O our sire!
Be our protector still, O heaven-begot!
391Not heroes, nor lords alone, did they call those whom they lawfully obeyed; nor merely as kings did they proclaim them; but they pronounced them their country’s guardians, their fathers, and their Gods. Nor, indeed, without cause, for they added,
Thou, Prince, hast brought us to the gates of light.
And truly they believed that life and honor and glory had arisen to them from the justice of their king. The same good-will would doubtless have remained in their descendants, if the same virtues had been preserved on the throne; but, as you see, by the injustice of one man the whole of that kind of constitution fell into ruin.