77. Passage 2: Read the passage and answer the questions No. 77-82
Titus Livius, as well as other historians, affinn that nothing is,,more uncertain and inconstant than the multitude; for it appears from what he relates of the actions of men, that in many instances the multitude, after having condemned a man to death, bitterly lamented it, and most earnestly wished him back. This was the case with the Roman people and Manlius Capitolinus .... "No sooner had they found out that they had nothing to fear from him, than they began to regret and to wish him back." And elsewhere ... he says: "It is the nature of the multitude either humbly to serve or insolently to dominate."
I know not whether, in undertaking a cause against the accusations of all wrlter~ I do not assume a task so hard and so beset with difficulties as to oblige me to abandon it with shame, or to go with it at the risk of being weighed down by it.
I say, then, that individual men, and especially princes, may be charged with the same defects of which writers accuse the people: for whoever is not controlled by laws will commit the same errors as an unbridled multitude. This may easily be verified, for there have been and still are plenty of princes, and a few good and wise ones, such, I mean, as needed not the curb that controlled them. [ ... ] They [the kings] should be compared with people equally controlled by law as those kings were. and then we shall find in that multitude the same good qualities as in those kings, and we shall see that such a people neither obey with servility nor command with insolence. Such were the people of Rome, who, so long as that republic remained uncorrupte~ neither obeyed basely nor ruled insolently, but rather held its rank honorably, supporting the laws and their magistrates. And when the unrighteous ambition of some noble made it necessary for them to rise up in self-defence, they did so, as in the case of Mq.n.lius, the Decemvirs, and others who attempted to oppress them; and so when the public good requlred them to obey the Dictators and Consuls, they promptly yielded obedience. And if the Roman people regretted Manlius Capitolinus after his death, it is not to be wondered at; for they regretted his virtues, which had been such that the remembnince of them filled every one with pity, and would have had the same effect upon any ptince; for all writers agree that virtue is to be admired and praised, even in one's enemies. And if intense desire could have restored Manlius to life, the Roman people would nevertheless have pronounced the same judgement against him as they did the first time .... We have seen princes that were esteemed wise, who have caused persons to be put to death and afterwards regretted it deeply.
But what our historian says of the character of the multitude does not apply to a people regulated by laws, as the Romans were, but to an unbridled multitude, such as the Syracusans who committed all the excesses to which infuriated and unbridled men abandon themselves, as did Alexander the Great and Herod ....
Therefore the character of the people is not to be blamed any more than that of the ptinces for both alike are liable to err when they are without any control. [ .... ] Contrary to the general opinion, then, which maintains that the people when they govern, are inconsistent, unstable, and ungrateful, I conclude and affIrm that these defects are not more natural to the people than they are to princes.
[Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses]
Q. Which of the following words are used here for describing the multitude? (University of Hyderabad MA 2020)
I. ''unpredictable''
II. "reckless"
III. "arroganf'
IV. "uncertain"
V. "unrighteous"
VI. "unstable"
VII. "inconsistent"