The opinion of those can never be assented to, who say that the power of the Dictator was not sovereign, because it was not permanent. For in the moral world the nature of things is known from their operations. The powers attended with equal effects are entitled to equal names. Now the Dictator for the time being performed all acts with the same authority as the most absolute sovereign; nor could any other power annul his acts. The permanence therefore of uncertainty alters not the nature of a right, although it would undoubtedly abridge its dignity, and diminish its splendour.[14] BOOK II. CHAPTER I. DEFENCE OF PERSON AND PROPERTY. Causes of War--Defence of person and property--What are called justifiable causes of war--Justifiable causes of War are Defence, recovery of one's property or debt, or the punishment of offences committed--War for defence of life, justifiable, and lawful--This kind of war lawful against an aggressor only--The danger must be present and real, not an imaginary danger--Lawful to kill any one attempting to maim one's person, or violate one's chastity--Occasions where this right may be lawfully waved--This right to be waved particularly with respect to the person of the Sovereign, which is sacred and inviolable--Homicide in defence of one's property allowed by the law of nature--How far homicide is permitted by the law of Moses--Self-defence in public war--Not lawful to attack any power solely on account of its increasing greatness--The hostile measures of an aggressor, not to be justified on the plea of self-defence. I. The causes of war by which are meant the justifiable causes, are now to be considered. For in some cases motives of interest operate distinctly from motives of justice. Polybius accurately distinguishes these motives from each other, and from the beginning of the war, or that which gave occasion to the first acts of hostility; as was the case when Ascanius wounded the stag, which gave rise to the war between Turnus and Aeneas. But though there is an actual distinction between the justifiable causes, the pretexts, and the beginning of war; yet the terms used to express them are often confounded. For what we call justifiable causes, Livy, in the speech which he has put into the mouth of the Rhodians, calls beginnings. The Rhodian deputies said, "You Romans profess to believe that your wars are successful, because they are just; nor do you boast so much of their victorious issue, as of the just principles, upon which you make them." In which sense Aelian styles them ἀρχας πολεμων {archas polemôn} and Diodorus Siculus, in speaking of the war of the Lacedaemonians against the Eleans gives them the name of προφασεις {prophaseis} and ἀρχας {archas}.