Augustine: DE CIVITATE DEI

[I] Iam satis dictum arbitror de morum malis et animorum, quae praecipue cauenda sunt, nihil deos falsos populo cultori suo, quo minus eorum malorum aggere premeretur, subuenire curasse, sed potius, ut maxime premeretur, egisse. Nunc de illis malis uideo dicendum, quae sola isti perpeti nolunt, qualia sunt fames morbus, bellum exspoliatio, captiuitas trucidatio, et si qua similia iam in primo libro commemorauimus. Haec enim sola mali deputant mala, quae non faciunt malos; nec erubescunt inter bona, quae laudant, ipsi mali esse qui laudant, magisque stomachantur, si uillam malam habeant, quam si uitam, quasi hoc sit hominis maximum bonum, habere bona omnia praeter se ipsum.

[1] I think enough has already been said about the evils of morals and of souls, which are especially to be shunned, that the false gods took no care to come to the aid of their worshiping people, to the end that they might be less pressed by the mass of those evils, but rather acted so that they might be most pressed. Now I see it must be said about those evils which alone those men are unwilling to endure—such as famine, disease, war, despoiling, captivity, butchery—and if there are any similar, we have already recalled them in the first book. For they reckon as the only evils the evils that do not make men evil; nor are they ashamed that, among the good things which they praise, they themselves, who praise them, are evil, and they are more indignant if they have a bad villa than if they have a bad life, as though this were the greatest good of a man: to have all good things except himself.

Sed neque talia mala, quae isti sola formidant, dii eorum, quando ab eis libere colebantur, ne illis acciderent obstiterunt. Cum enim uariis per diuersa temporibus ante aduentum Redemptoris nostri innumerabilibus nonnullisque etiam incredibilibus claudius genus contereretur humanum, quos alios quam istos deos mundus colebat, excepto uno populo Hebraeo et quibusdam extra ipsum populum, ubicumque gratia diuina digni occultissimo atque iustissimo Dei iudicio fuerunt? Verum ne nimis longum faciam, tacebo aliarum usquequaque gentium mala grauissima: quod ad Romam pertinet Romanumque imperium tantum loquar, id est ad ipsam proprie ciuitatem et quaecumque illi terrarum uel societate coniunctae uel condicione subiectae sunt, quae sint perpessae ante aduentum Christi, cum iam ad eius quasi corpus rei publicae pertinerent.

But neither did their gods, when they were freely worshiped by them, stand in the way to prevent such evils—which those men alone dread—from befalling them. For when, at various times and in diverse places before the advent of our Redeemer, the human race was being crushed by innumerable and even some incredible disasters, what other gods than these did the world worship, except for the one Hebrew people and for certain persons outside that people, wherever they were found worthy of divine grace by the most hidden and most just judgment of God? Yet, lest I make it too long, I will pass over the most grievous evils of the other nations everywhere: as concerns Rome and the Roman empire I will speak only—namely, about the city itself properly so called, and whatever lands were either conjoined to her by alliance or subjected by condition—what they underwent before the advent of Christ, when already they were pertaining to her as, so to speak, the body of the commonwealth.

[II] Primum ipsa Troia uel Ilium, unde origo est populi Romani, (neque enim praetereundum aut dissimulandum est, quod et in primo libro adtigi) eosdem habens deos et colens cur a Graecis uictum, captum atque deletum est? "Priamo, inquiunt, sunt reddita Laomedontea paterna periuria." Ergo uerum est, quod Apollo atque Neptunus eidem Laomedonti mercennariis operibus seruierunt? Illis quippe promisisse mercedem falsumque iurasse perhibetur.

[2] First, Troy itself, or Ilium, whence is the origin of the Roman people (for it ought not to be passed over or dissembled, which also in the first book I touched), having and worshiping the same gods, why was it by the Greeks conquered, captured, and annihilated? “To Priam,” they say, “were rendered the paternal perjuries of Laomedon.” Therefore is it true that Apollo and Neptune served that same Laomedon in mercenary works? For he is reported to have promised them wages and to have sworn falsely.

Miror Apollinem nominatum diuinatorem in tanto opificio laborasse nescientem quod Laomedon fuerat promissa negaturus. Quamquam nec ipsum Neptunum patruum eius, fratrem Iouis, regem maris, decuit ignarum esse futurorum. Nam hunc Homerus de stirpe Aeneae, a cuius posteris Roma est, cum ante illam urbem conditam idem poeta fuisse dicatur, inducit magnum aliquid diuinantem, quem etiam nube rapuit, ut dicit, ne ab Achille occideretur,

I marvel that Apollo, named a diviner, labored in so great a work not knowing that Laomedon was going to deny the promises. Although it did not befit Neptune himself either—his uncle, the brother of Jove, the king of the sea—to be ignorant of things to come. For Homer brings on stage this man of the stock of Aeneas, from whose descendants is Rome—though the same poet is said to have lived before that city was founded—foretelling something great; whom, as he says, he also snatched away in a cloud, lest he be slain by Achilles,

cuperet cum uertere ab imo, quod aput Vergilium confitetur,

when he desired to overturn it from the bottom, as he confesses in Virgil,

Structa suis manibus periurae moenia Troiae. Nescientes igitur tanti dii, Neptunus et Apollo, Laomedontem sibi negaturum esse mercedem structores moenium Troianorum gratis et ingratis fuerunt. Videant ne grauius sit tales deos credere quam diis talibus peierare.

The walls of perjured Troy were built with their own hands. Therefore such great gods, Neptune and Apollo, unaware that Laomedon would refuse them their wage, were builders of the walls of the Trojans gratis and for the ungrateful. Let them see whether it is the graver thing to believe in such gods than to perjure oneself by such gods.

Hoc enim nec ipse Homerus facile credidit, qui Neptunum quidem contra Troianos, Apollinem autem pro Troianis pugnantem facit, cum illo periurio ambos fabula narret offensos. Si igitur fabulis credunt, erubescant talia colere numina; si fabulis non credunt, non obtemdant Troiana periuria, aut merentur deos periuria punisse Troiana, amasse Romana, Vnde enim coniuratio Catilinae in tanta tamque corrupta ciuitate habuit etiam eorum grandem copiam, quos manus atque lingua periurio aut sanguine ciuili alebat? Quid enim aliud totiens senatores corrupti in iudiciis, totiens populus in suffragiis uel in quibusque causis, quae apud eum contionibus agebantur, nisi etiam peierando peccabant?

For not even Homer himself easily believed this, who represents Neptune indeed fighting against the Trojans, but Apollo for the Trojans, though the tale relates that both were offended by that perjury. If therefore they believe the fables, let them blush to worship such numina; if they do not believe the fables, let them not hold up Trojan perjuries as an objection, or else they merit the claim that the gods punished the Trojan perjuries, loved the Roman. For whence did Catiline’s conspiracy, in so great and so corrupted a city, have also a great abundance of those whom hand and tongue were nourished by perjury or by civil blood? For what else were the senators so often, corrupted in the courts, and the people so often in the suffrages or in whatever causes were conducted before it in public assemblies, doing, if not also sinning by perjuring themselves?

Namque corruptissimis moribus ad hoc mos iurandi seruabatur antiquus, non ut ab sceleribus metu religionis prohiberentur, sed ut periuria quoque sceleribus ceteris adderentur.

For indeed, with morals most corrupt, to this end the ancient custom of swearing was preserved, not that they might be restrained from crimes by the fear of religion, but that perjuries too might be added to the other crimes.

[III] Nulla itaque causa est, quare dii, quibus, ut dicunt, steterat illud imperium, cum a Graecis praeualentibus probentur uicti, Troianis peierantibus fingantur irati. Nec adulterio Paridis, ut rursus a quibusdam defenduntur, ut Troiam desererent, suscensuerunt. Auctores enim doctoresque peccatorum esse adsolent, non ultores.

[3] Therefore there is no cause why the gods, by whom, as they say, that empire had stood, when they are proved to have been conquered by the prevailing Greeks, should be imagined as angry with the perjuring Trojans. Nor were they incensed at the adultery of Paris, as some, in turn, defend them, so that they might desert Troy. For they are wont to be authors and teachers of sins, not avengers.

"Vrbem Romam, inquit Sallustius, sicuti ego accepi, condidere atque habuere initio Troiani, qui Aenea duce profugi sedibus incertis uagabantur." Si ergo adulterium Paridis uindicandum numinaa censuerunt, aut magis in Romanis aut certe etiam in Romanis puniendum fuit, quia Aeneae mater hoc fecit. Sed quo modo in illo illud flagitium oderant qui in sua socia Venere non oderant (ut alia omittam) quod cum Anchise commiserat, ex quo Aenean pepererat? An quia illud factum est indignante Menelao, illud autem concedente Vulcano?

"The city Rome," says Sallust, "as I have received it, the Trojans founded and held at the beginning, who, with Aeneas as leader, as exiles were wandering with dwellings uncertain." If therefore the numina judged that the adultery of Paris was to be avenged, either more in the Romans or at least also in the Romans it ought to have been punished, because Aeneas’s mother did this. But how did they hate that flagitious act in that man, who did not hate it in their own ally Venus (to omit other things), what she had committed with Anchises, from which she had borne Aeneas? Or was it because the former was done with Menelaus indignant, but the latter with Vulcan conceding?

Dii enim, credo, non zelant coniuges suas, usque adeo ut eas etiam cum hominibus dignentur habere communes. Inridere fabulas fortassis existimor nec grauiter agere tanti ponderis causam. Non ergo credamus, si placet, Aenean esse Veneris filium: ecce concedo, si nec Romulum Martis.

For the gods, I suppose, are not jealous of their consorts, to such a degree that they even deign to have them in common with men. I am perhaps thought to be ridiculing the fables and not to handle with gravity a cause of such weight. Therefore let us not believe, if it please, that Aeneas is the son of Venus: behold, I concede it, provided that neither is Romulus of Mars.

Si autem illud, cur non et illud? An deos <fas est> hominibus feminis, mares autem homines deabus misceri nefas? Dura uel potius non credenda condicio, quod ex iure Veneris in concubitu Marti licuit, hoc in iure suo ipsi Veneri non licere.

If however that, why not this as well? Or is it <it is right> for gods to be mixed with human females, but for male humans to be mixed with goddesses nefas (impious/illicit)? A hard, or rather not-to-be-believed, condition: that what by the right of Venus was licit for Mars in concubitus, this by her own right is not licit for Venus herself.

At utrumque firmatum est auctoritate Romana. Neque enim minus credidit recentior Caesar auiam Venerem quam patrem antiquior Romulus Martem.

But both were confirmed by Roman authority. For the more recent Caesar believed in grandmother Venus no less than the more ancient Romulus believed in father Mars.

[IV] Dixerit aliquis: Itane tu ista credis? Ego uero ista non credo. Nam et uir doctissimus eorum Varro falsa haec esse, quamuis non audacter neque fidenter, paene tamen fatetur.

[IV] Someone might say: Do you indeed believe those things? I, for my part, do not believe those things. For even their most learned man, Varro, almost confesses these things to be false, although not audaciously nor confidently.

Sed utile esse ciuitatibus dicit, ut se uiri fortes, etiamsi falsum sit, diis genitos esse credant, ut eo modo animus humanus uelut diuinae stirpis fiduciam gerens res magnas adgrediendas praesumat audacius, agat uehementius et ob hoc impleat ipsa securitate felicius. Quae Varronis sententia expressa, ut potui, meis uerbis cernis quam latum locum aperiat falsitati, ut ibi intellegamus plura iam sacra et quasi religiosa potuisse confingi, ubi putata sunt ciuibus etiam de ipsis diis prodesse mendacia.

But he says it is useful for commonwealths that brave men, even if it is false, should believe themselves to have been begotten from the gods, so that in this way the human mind, as it were bearing the confidence of a divine stock, may presume more boldly to undertake great enterprises, act more vehemently, and on this account fulfill them more felicitously by that very security. This opinion of Varro, expressed, as I could, in my own words, you see how wide a field it opens to falsity, so that there we may understand that more sacred rites and as-it-were religious observances could have been fabricated, where lies were thought to profit the citizens even concerning the gods themselves.

[V] Sed utrum potuerit Venus ex concubitu Ancisae Aenean parere uel Mars ex concubitu filiae Numitoris Romulum gignere, in medio relinguamus. Nam paene talis quaestio etiam de scripturis nostris oboritur, qua quaeritur, utrum praeuaricatores angeli cum filiabus hominum concubuerint, unde natis gigantibus, hoc est nimium grandibus ac fortibus uiris, tunc terra completa est. Proinde ad utrumque interim nostra disputatio referatur.

[5] But whether Venus could from intercourse with Anchises bear Aeneas, or Mars from intercourse with the daughter of Numitor beget Romulus, let us leave undecided. For a nearly similar question also arises from our Scriptures, wherein it is asked whether the prevaricating angels lay with the daughters of men, whence, with giants born—that is, excessively large and strong men—the earth was then filled. Accordingly, to each, for the time being, let our discussion be referred.

Si enim uera sunt, quae apud illos de matre Aeneae et de patre Romuli lectitantur, quo modo possunt diis adulteria displicere hominum, quae in se ipsis concorditer ferunt? Si autem falsa sunt, ne sic quidem possunt irasci ueris adulteriis humanis, qui etiam falsis delectantur suis. Huc accedit, quoniam, si illud de Marte non creditur, ut hoc quoque de Venere non credatur, nullo diuini concubitus obtentu matris romuli causa defenditur.

If the things that are repeatedly read among them about the mother of Aeneas and the father of Romulus are true, how can adulteries of men displease the gods, which they themselves consistently tolerate in their own case? But if they are false, not even so can they grow angry at true human adulteries, they who even take delight in false ones of their own. Add to this that, since if that tale about Mars is not believed, so that this one too about Venus is not believed, the case of Romulus’s mother is defended by no pretext of divine concubinage.

Fuit autem sacerdos illa Vestalis ,et ideo dii magis in Romanos sacrilegum illud flagitium quam in Troianos Paridis adulterim uindicare debuerunt. Nam et ipsi Romani antiqui in stupro detectas Vestae sacerdotes uiuas etiam defodiebant, adulteras autem feminas, quamuis aliqua damnatione, nulla tamen morte plectebant: usque adeo grauius quae putabant adyta diuina quam humana cubilia uindicabant.

But that priestess was a Vestal, and therefore the gods ought rather to have avenged upon the Romans that sacrilegious crime than upon the Trojans the adultery of Paris. For even the ancient Romans used to bury alive the priestesses of Vesta detected in stuprum, whereas adulterous women, although with some condemnation, yet they punished with no death: to such an extent they vindicated more gravely the divine adyta than human beds.

[VI] Aliud adicio, quia, si peccata hominum illis numinibus displicerent, ut offensi Paridis facto desertam Troiam ferro ignibusque donarent, magis eos contra Romanos moueret Romuli frater occisus quam contra Troianos Graecus maritus inlusus; magis inritaret parricidium nascentis quam regnantis adulterium ciuitatis. Nec ad causam, quam nunc agimus, interest, utrum hoc fieri Romulus iusserit aut Romulus fecerit, quod multi inpudentia negant, multi pudore dubitant, multi dolore dissimulant. Nec nos itaque in ea re diligentius requirenda per multorum scriptorum perpensa testimonia demoremur: Romuli fratrem palam constat occisum, non ab hostibus, non ab alienis.

[6] I add another point: for if the sins of men displeased those divinities, so that, offended by the deed of Paris, they delivered abandoned Troy over to sword and fires, they would be moved more against the Romans by the slain brother of Romulus than against the Trojans by the mocked Greek husband; the parricide of a city being born would more irritate them than the adultery of a city reigning. Nor does it matter for the case which we are now pleading, whether Romulus ordered this to be done or Romulus himself did it—which many deny through impudence, many doubt through shame, many dissimulate through grief. Nor, therefore, let us linger in more painstaking inquiry of that matter by weighing the testimonies of many writers: it is plain that the brother of Romulus was openly killed, not by enemies, not by strangers.

Si aut perpetrauit aut imperauit hoc Romulus, magis ipse fuit Romanorum quam Paris Troianorum caput; cur igitur Troianis iram deorum prouocauit ille alienae coniugis raptor, et eorumdem deorum tutelam Romanis inuitauit iste sui fratris extinctor? Si autem illud scelus a facto imperioque Romuli alienum est: quoniam debuit utique uindicari, tota hoc illa ciuitas fecit, quod tota contempsit, et non iam fratrem, sed patrem, quod est peius, occidit. Vterque enim fuit conditor, ubi alter scelere ablatus non permissus est esse regnator.

If Romulus either perpetrated this or commanded it, he himself was more the head of the Romans than Paris was of the Trojans; why then did that ravisher of another’s spouse provoke the wrath of the gods upon the Trojans, and did this slayer of his own brother invite the tutelage of those same gods for the Romans? But if that crime is alien from the deed and command of Romulus: since it ought at any rate to have been vindicated, that whole city did this, in that as a whole it despised it, and killed not now a brother, but a father, which is worse. For each was a founder, where the one, taken away by crime, was not permitted to be ruler.

Non est, ut arbitror, quod dicatur quid mali Troia meruerit, ut eam dii desererent, quo posset extingui, et quid boni Roma, ut eam dii inhabitarent, quo posset augeri; nisi quod uicti inde fugerunt et se ad istos, quos pariter deciperent, contulerunt; immo uero et illic manserunt ad eos more suo decipiendos, qui rursus easdem terras habitarent, et hic easdem artem fallaciae suae magis etiam exercendo maioribus honoribus gloriati sunt.

There is not, as I reckon, anything to be said as to what evil Troy had deserved, that the gods should desert it, whereby it might be extinguished, and what good Rome, that the gods should inhabit it, whereby it might be augmented; except that the vanquished fled from there and betook themselves to those whom they might likewise deceive; nay rather, both there they remained, to deceive—according to their custom—those who would again inhabit those same lands, and here, by exercising the same art of their fallacy even more, they vaunted themselves in greater honors.

[VII] Certe enim ciuilibus iam bellis scatentibus quid miserum commiserat Ilium, ut a Fimbria, Marianarum partium homine pessimo, euerteretur, multo ferocius atque crudelius quam olim a Graecis? Nam tunc et multi inde fugerunt et multi captiuati saltem in seruitute uixerunt; porro autem Fimbria prius edictum proposuit, ne cui parceretur, atque urbem totam cunctosque in ea homines incendio concremauit. Hoc meruit Ilium non a Graecis quos sua inritauerat iniquitate, sed a Romanis quos sua calamitate propagauerat, diis illis communibus ad haec repellenda nihil iuuantibus seu, quod uerum est, nihil ualentibus. Numquid et tunc

[VII] For indeed, with civil wars now seething, what had wretched Ilium perpetrated, that it should be overthrown by Fimbria, a most wicked man of the Marian faction, far more ferociously and cruelly than once by the Greeks? For then both many fled from there, and many, taken captive, at least lived in servitude; but moreover Fimbria first posted an edict that no one be spared, and he burned with fire the whole city and all the people in it. This Ilium deserved not from the Greeks, whom it had irritated by its iniquity, but from the Romans, whom it had propagated by its calamity, those common gods helping nothing to repel these things, or, what is the truth, availing nothing. Was it also then

Abscessere omnes adytis arisque relictis

All have withdrawn, the adyta and altars left behind

Di, quibus illud oppidum steterat post antiquos Graecorum ignes ruinasque reparatum? Si autem abscesserant, causam requiro, et oppidanorum quidem quanto inuenio meliorem, tanto deteriorem deorum. Illi enim contra Fimbriam portas clauserant, ut Sullae seruarent integram ciuitatem; hinc eos iratus incendit uel potius penitus extinxit.

The gods, by whom that town had stood, restored after the ancient fires of the Greeks and the ruins? But if they had withdrawn, I ask the cause; and the better I find the case of the townsmen, the worse that of the gods. For they had closed the gates against Fimbria, that they might preserve the city intact for Sulla; whereupon, in anger, he burned them—or rather, utterly extinguished them.

Adhuc autem meliorum partium ciuilium Sulla dux fuit, adhuc armis rem publicam recuperare moliebatur; horum bonorum initiorum nondum malos euentus habuit. Quid ergo melius ciues urbis illius facere potuerunt, quid honestius, quid fidelius, quid Romana parentela dignius quam meliori causae Romanorum ciuitatem seruare et contra parricidam Romanae rei publicae portas claudere? At hoc eis in quantum exitium uerterit, adtendant defensores deorum.

Moreover, up to this point Sulla was the leader of the better civil party, and he was still striving by arms to recover the republic; of these good initiations he had not yet had bad events. What, then, could the citizens of that city have done better, what more honest, what more faithful, what more worthy of Roman parentage than to preserve the city for the better cause of the Romans and to shut the gates against the parricide of the Roman commonwealth? But to what a destruction this turned for them, let the defenders of the gods take note.

Deseruerint dii adulteros Iliumque flammis Graecorum reliquerint, ut ex eius cineribus Roma castior naxceretur: cur et postea deseruerunt eandem ciuitatem Romanis cognatam, non rebellantem aduersus Romam nobilem filiam, sed iustioribus eius partibus fidem constantissimam piissimamque seruantem, eamque delendam reliquerunt non Graecorum uiris fortibus, sed uiro spurcissimo Romanorum? Aut si displicebat diis causa partium Sullanarum, cui seruantes urbem miseri portas clauserant: cur eidem Sullae tanta bona promittebant et praenuntiabant? An et hic agnoscuntur adulatores felicium potius quam infelicium defensores?

Let it be that the gods deserted the adulterers and left Ilium to the flames of the Greeks, so that from its ashes a more chaste Rome might be born: why then afterwards did they also desert that same city, cognate to the Romans, not rebelling against Rome its noble daughter, but keeping for her juster party a loyalty most steadfast and most pious, and leave it to be destroyed not by the brave men of the Greeks, but by the most filthy man of the Romans? Or if the cause of Sulla’s party displeased the gods, on whose behalf, in preserving the city, the wretches had shut the gates: why did they promise and preannounce such great goods to this same Sulla? Or here too are they recognized as flatterers of the fortunate rather than defenders of the unfortunate?

Non ergo Ilium etiam tunc, ab eis cum desereretur, euersum est. Nam daemones ad decipiendum semper uigilantissimi, quod potuerunt, fecerunt. Euersis quippe et incensis omnibus cum oppido simulacris solum Mineruae sub tanta ruina templi illius, ut scribit Liuius, integrum stetisse perhibetur, non ut <diceretur>:

Therefore Ilium was not even then overthrown, when it was being deserted by them. For the demons, most vigilant for deceiving, did what they could. For with all things—together with the town and the images—overthrown and burned, it is reported that only Minerva’s (image), under so great a ruin of that temple, as Livy writes, stood intact, not so that it might be said:

Di patrii, quorum semper sub numine Troia est, ad eorum laudem, sed ne diceretur:

Ancestral gods, under whose numen Troy always is, for their praise, but lest it be said:

Excessere omnes adytis arisque relictis

All departed, the inner sanctuaries and altars left behind

Di, ad eorum defensionem. Illud enim posse permissi sunt, non unde probarentur potentes, sed unde praesentes conuincerentur.

The gods, for their defense. For they were permitted to be able to do that, not whereby they would be proven potent, but whereby they would be convicted as present.

[VIII] Diis itaque Iliacis post Troiae ipsius documentum qua tandem prudentia Roma custodienda commissa est? Dixerit quispiam iam eos Romae habitare solitos, quando expugnante Fimbria cecidit Ilium. Vnde ergo stetit Mineruae simulacrum?

[8] To the Iliac gods, therefore, after the very document of Troy itself, by what prudence at last was Rome, to-be-guarded, entrusted? Someone might say that they were already wont to inhabit Rome when Ilium fell, with Fimbria storming it. Whence, then, did Minerva’s simulacrum stand?

Deinde, si apud Romam erant, quando Fimbria deleuit Ilium, fortasse aput Ilium erant, quando a Gallis ipsa Roma capta et incensa est; sed ut sunt auditu acutissimi motuque celerrimi, ad uocem anseris cito redierunt, ut saltem Capitolinum collem, qui remanserat, turerentur; ceterum ad alia defendenda serus sunt redire commoniti.

Then, if they were at Rome when Fimbria destroyed Ilium, perhaps they were at Ilium when Rome herself was captured and burned by the Gauls; but since they are most sharp in hearing and most swift in motion, they quickly returned at the voice of a goose, so that at least they might protect the Capitoline hill, which had remained; for the rest, to defend other things, though admonished to return, they were late to come back.

[IX] Hi etiam Numam Pompilium successorem Romuli adiuuisse creduntur, ut toto regni sui tempore pacem haberet et Iani portas, quae bellis patere adsolent, clauderet, eo merito scilicet, quia Romanis multa sacra constituit. Illi uero homini pro tanto otio gratulandum fuit, si modo id rebus salubribus scisset impendere et perniciosissima curiositate neglaecta Deum uerum uera pietate perquirere. Nunc autem non ei dii contulerunt illud otium, sed eum minus fortasse decepissent, si otiosum minime repperissent.

[IX] These are even believed to have aided Numa Pompilius, the successor of Romulus, so that through the whole time of his reign he might have peace and might shut the gates of Janus, which are wont to stand open in wars—namely with this desert, because he established many sacred rites for the Romans. To that man indeed it would have been a thing for congratulation for so great leisure, if only he had known to expend it on salubrious matters and, with most pernicious curiosity neglected, to inquire after the true God with true piety. Now, however, it was not the gods who conferred that leisure upon him, but they would perhaps have deceived him less, if they had by no means found him idle.

Quanto enim minus eum occupatum inuenerunt, tanto magis ipsi occupauerunt. Nam quid ille molitus sit et quibus artibus deos tales sibi uel illi ciuitati consociare potuerit, Varro prodit, quod, si Domino placuerit, suo diligentius disseretur loco. Modo autem quia de beneficiis eorum quaestio est: magnum beneficium est pax, sed Dei ueri beneficium est, plerumque etiam sicut sol, sicut pluuia uitaeque alia subsidia super ingratos et nequam.

For the less they found him occupied, the more they themselves occupied him. For what he contrived, and by what arts he was able to associate such gods to himself or to that city, Varro records—a matter which, if it shall please the Lord, will be discussed more diligently in its proper place. But for the moment, since the question is about their benefactions: peace is a great benefaction, yet it is the benefaction of the true God, who for the most part, like the sun and like the rain and other subsidies of life, bestows it upon the ungrateful and the wicked.

Sed si hoc tam magnum bonum dii illi Romae uel Pompilio contulerunt, cur imperio Romano per ipsa tempora laudabilia id numquam postea praestiterunt? An utiliora erant sacra, cum instituerentur, quam cum instituta celebrarentur? Atqui tunc nondum erant, sed ut essent addebantur; postea uero iam erant, quae ut prodessent custodiebantur.

But if those gods conferred this so great a good upon Rome or upon Pompilius, why did they never afterward provide it to the Roman empire during those very praiseworthy times? Were the sacred rites more advantageous when they were being instituted than when, once instituted, they were being celebrated? And yet then they did not yet exist, but were being added so that they might exist; afterward, however, they already existed, and were being observed that they might be of benefit.

Quid ergo est, quod illi quadraginta tres uel, ut alii uolunt, triginta et nouem anni in tam longa pace transacti sunt regnante Numa, et postea sacris institutis diisque ipsis, qui eisdem sacris fuerant inuitati, iam praesidibus atque tutoribus uix post tam multos annos ab Vrbe condita usque ad Augustum pro magno miraculo unus commemoratur annus post primum bellum Punicum, quo belli portas Romani claudere potuerunt?

What then is the reason that those forty-three, or, as others wish, thirty-nine years were spent in so long a peace with Numa reigning, and afterwards, with the sacra instituted and the gods themselves, who had been invited by those same sacra, now as protectors and guardians, scarcely—after so many years from the founding of the City up to Augustus—as a great miracle, one year is recounted after the First Punic War, in which the Romans were able to close the gates of war?

[X] An respondent, quod nisi assiduis sibique continuo succedentibus bellis Romanum imperium tam longe lateque non posset augeri et tam grandi gloria diffamari? Idonea uero causa! Vt magnum esset imperium, cur esse deberet inquietum?

[10] Or do they respond that, unless by assiduous wars continually succeeding one another, the Roman empire could not be augmented so far and wide and be noised abroad with so grand a glory? A fitting cause indeed! That the empire might be great, why should it have to be unquiet?

Nonne in corporibus hominum satius est modicam staturam cum sanitate habere quam ad molem aliquam giganteam perpetuis adflictionibus peruenire, nec cum perueneris requiescere, sed quanto grandioribus membris, tanto maioribus agitari malis? Quid autem mali esset, ac non potius plurimum boni, si ea tempora perdurarent, quae perstrinxit Sallustius, ubi ait: "Igitur initio reges (nam in terris nomen imperii id primum fuit) diuersi pars ingenium, alii corpus exercebant; etiamtum uita hominum sine cupiditate agitabatur, sua cuique satis placebant." An ut tam multum augeretur imperium, debuit fieri quod Vergilius dedestatur, dicens:

Is it not, in the bodies of men, better to have a moderate stature with health than to arrive at some gigantic mass by perpetual afflictions, and, when you have arrived, not to rest, but, the greater the limbs, to be agitated by so much greater evils? And what evil would there be, nay rather very much good, if those times were to endure which Sallust just touched upon, where he says: "Therefore, in the beginning, kings (for on earth the name of imperium was first that) in diverse ways, some exercised the mind, others the body; even then the life of men was carried on without cupidity; each was sufficiently pleased with what was his own." Or that the imperium might be increased so much, ought to have been done what Vergil detests, saying:

Deterior donec paulatim ac decolor aetas

Until little by little a worse and discolored age

Et belli rabies et amor successit habendi? Sed plane pro tantis bellis susceptis et gestis iusta defensio Romanorum est, quod inruentibus sibi inportune inimicis resistere cogebat non auiditas adipiscendae laudis humanae, sed necessitas tuendae salutis et libertatis. Ita sit plane.

And did both the rabies of war and the love of possessing succeed? But plainly, for such great wars undertaken and carried through, there is a just defense of the Romans: that, as enemies were inopportunely rushing upon them, it was not an avidity for acquiring human praise that compelled them to resist, but the necessity of safeguarding safety and liberty. So let it be, plainly.

Nam "postquam res eorum, sicut scribit ipse Sallustius, legibus moribus agris aucta satis prospera satisque pollens uidebatur, sicut pleraque mortalium habentur, inuidia ex opulentia orta est. Igitur reges populique finitimi bello temptare; pauci ex amicis auxilio esse, nam ceteri metu perculsi a periculis aberant. At Romani domi militiaeque intenti festinare parare, alius alium hortari, hostibus obuiam ire, libertatem patriam parentesque armis tegere.

For "after their condition, as Sallust himself writes, having been augmented by laws, morals, and fields, seemed quite prosperous and sufficiently potent, as most things of mortals are considered, envy arose from opulence. Therefore kings and neighboring peoples try them with war; a few of their friends were a help, for the rest, smitten by fear, kept away from dangers. But the Romans, intent at home and in military service, hasten to prepare, one exhorting another, to go to meet the enemies, to cover with arms their liberty, fatherland, and parents.

Post ubi pericula uirtute propulerant, sociis atque amicis auxilia portabant magisque dandis quam accipiendis beneficiis amicitias parabant." Decenter his artibus Roma creuit. Sed regnante Numa, ut tam longa pax esset, utrum inruebant inprobi belloque temptabant, an nihil eorum fiebat, ut posset pax illa persistere? Si enim bellis etiam tum Roma lacessebatur nec armis arma obuia ferebantur: quibus modis agebatur, ut nulla pugna superati, nullo Martio impetu territi sedarentur inimici, his modis semper ageretur et semper Roma clausis Iani portis pacata regnaret.

Afterwards, when they had driven away dangers by virtue, they were bringing aids to allies and friends, and they were procuring friendships more by giving than by receiving benefits." Fittingly by these arts Rome grew. But with Numa reigning, that there might be so long a peace, were the wicked rushing in and trying by war, or was none of those things happening, so that that peace could persist? For if even then Rome was being provoked by wars, and arms were not being borne to meet arms: by what methods was it managed, that, conquered in no battle, and terrified by no Martial onset, the enemies were quieted? By these methods let it always be managed, and let Rome always, with the gates of Janus closed, reign pacified.

Quod si in potestate non fuit, non ergo Roma pacem habuit, quamdiu dii eorum, sed quamdiu homines finitimi circumquaque uoluerunt, qui eam nullo bello prouocauerunt; nisi forte dii tales etiam id homini uendere audebunt, quod alius homo uoluit siue noluit. Interest quidem, iam uitio proprio, malas mentes quatenus sinantur isti daemones uel terrere uel excitare; sed si semper hoc possent nec aliud secretiore ac superiore potestate contra eorum conatum saepe aliter ageretur, semper in potestate haberent paces bellicasque uictorias, quae semper fere per humanorum animorum motus accidunt; quas tamen plerumque contra eorum fieri uoluntatem non solae fabulae multa mentientes et uix ueri aliquid uel indicantes uel significantes, sed etiam ipsa Romana confitetur historia.

But if it was not in their power, then Rome did not have peace for as long as their gods [willed], but for as long as the neighboring men all around willed, who did not provoke it with any war; unless perchance such gods will even dare to sell to a man that which another man willed or willed not. It does indeed matter—now by their own fault—to what extent those daemons are permitted either to terrify or to excite evil minds; but if they could always do this, and if nothing else by a more secret and higher power were often carried on otherwise against their attempt, they would always have in their power peaces and warlike victories, which almost always occur through the motions of human souls; which, however, for the most part are brought about against their will—not only do fables confess this, telling many falsehoods and scarcely indicating or signifying anything of the true, but even Roman history itself confesses it.

[XI] Neque enim aliunde Apollo ille Cumanus, cum aduersus Achiuos regemque Aristonicum bellaretur, quadriduo fleuisse nuntiatus est; quo prodigio haruspices territi cum id simulacrum in mare putauissent esse proiciendum, Cumani senes intercesserunt atque rettulerunt tale prodigium et Antiochi et Persis bello in eodem apparuisse figmento, et quia Romanis feliciter prouenisset, ex senatus consulto eidem Apollini suo dona missa esse testati sunt. Tunc uelut peritiores acciti haruspices responderunt simulacri Apollinis fletum ideo prosperum esse Romanis, quoniam Cumana colonia Graeca esset, suisque terris, unde accitus esset, id est ipsi Graeciae, luctum et cladem Apollinem significasse plorantem. Deinde mox regem Aristnicum uictum et captum esse nuntiatum est, quem uinci utique Apollo nolebat et dolebat et hoc sui lapidis etiam lacrimis indicabat.

[11] For not from any other cause was that Apollo of Cumae reported to have wept for four days, when war was being waged against the Achaeans and King Aristonicus; at which prodigy the haruspices, terrified, when they had thought that that simulacrum ought to be thrown into the sea, the elders of Cumae interceded and reported that such a prodigy had also appeared, in the war of Antiochus and the Persians, in the same figment, and, because it had turned out happily for the Romans, they testified that, by a senatorial decree, gifts had been sent to that same Apollo of theirs. Then the haruspices, summoned as though more skillful, answered that the weeping of the simulacrum of Apollo was therefore prosperous for the Romans, since Cumae was a Greek colony, and that for his own lands, whence he had been called, that is, for Greece itself, Apollo, by weeping, had signified mourning and disaster. Then soon it was announced that King Aristnicus had been defeated and captured, whom Apollo by all means did not wish to be conquered and grieved, and he indicated this also by the tears of his own stone.

Vnde non usquequaque incongrue quamuis fabulosis, tamen ueritati similibus mores daemonum descirbuntur carminibus poetarum. Nam Camillam Diana doluit apud Vergilium et Pallantem moriturum Hercules fleuit. Hinc fortassis et Numa Pompilius pace abundans, sed quo donante nesciens nec requirens, cum cogitaret otiosus, quibusnam diis tuendam Romanam salutem regnumque committeret, nec uerum illum atque omnipotentem summum Deum curare opinaretur ista terrena, atque recoleret Troianos deos, quos Aeneas aduexerat, neque Troianum neque Lauiniense ab ipso Aenea conditum regnum diu conseruare potuisse: alios prouidendos existimauit, quos illis prioribus, qui siue cum Romulo iam Romam transierant, siue quandoque Alba euersa fuerant transituri, uel tamquam fugitiuis custodes adhiberet uel tamquam inualidis adiutores.

Whence it is not altogether incongruous that, although fabulous, yet similar to truth, the manners of the daemons are described in the songs of the poets. For Diana grieved over Camilla in Vergil, and Hercules wept for Pallas about to die. Hence perhaps also Numa Pompilius, abounding in peace, but knowing not from what giver and not inquiring, when at leisure he pondered to which gods he should commit the safeguarding of Roman welfare and the kingdom, and supposed that that true and omnipotent highest God did not care for these earthly things, and recalled the Trojan gods which Aeneas had brought, that neither the Trojan nor the Lavinian kingdom founded by Aeneas himself had been able to preserve for long: he judged that other gods must be provided, whom, in addition to those former ones—who either had already crossed over to Rome with Romulus, or would at some time cross over when Alba was overthrown—he might employ as guardians, as it were, for fugitives, or as helpers for the feeble.

[XII] Nec his sacris tamen Roma dignata est esse contenta, quae tam multa illic Pompilius constituerat. Nam ipsius summum templum nondum habebat Iouis; rex quippe Tarquinius ibi Capitolium fabricauit; Aesculapius autem ab Epidauro ambiuit ad Romam, ut peritissimus medicus in urbe nobilissima artem gloriosius exerceret; mater etiam deum nescio unde a Pessinunte; indignum enim erat, ut, cum eius filius iam colli Capitolino praesideret, adhuc ipsa in loco ignobili latitaret. Quae tamen si omnium deorum mater est, non solum secuta est Romam quosdam filios suos, uerum et alios praecessit etiam secuturos.

[12] Nor yet with these sacred rites did Rome deign to be content, which so many there Pompilius had constituted. For it did not yet have the supreme temple of Jupiter himself; for King Tarquinius built the Capitol there; moreover Aesculapius from Epidaurus made his way to Rome, so that, as a most expert physician, in a most noble city he might exercise his art more gloriously; the Mother of the gods also, from I know not where, from Pessinus; for it was unworthy that, since her son already presided over the Capitoline hill, she herself should still skulk in an ignoble place. Who yet, if she is the mother of all the gods, not only followed to Rome certain of her sons, but even preceded others who would follow.

Miror sane, si ipsa peperit Cynocephalum, qui longe postea uenit ex Aegypto. Vtrum etiam dea Febris ex illa nata sit, uiderit Aesculapius pronepos eius; sed undecumque nata sit, non, opinor, audebunt eam dicere ignobilem dii peregrini deam ciuem Romanam. Sub hoc tot deorum praesidio (quos numerare quis potest, indigenas et alienigenas, caelites terrestres, infernos marinos, fontanos fluuiales, et, ut Varro dicit, certos atque incertos, in omnibusque generibus deorum, sicut in animalibus, mares et feminas?) —- sub hoc ergo tot deorum praesidio constituta Roma non tam magnis et horrendis cladibus, quales ex multis paucas commemorabo, agitari adfligique debuit.

I do truly marvel, if she herself bore the Cynocephalus, who came much later from Egypt. Whether even the goddess Fever was born from her, let Aesculapius, her great‑grandson, see to it; but from whatever source she was born, I do not think the foreign gods will dare to call a Roman‑citizen goddess ignoble. Under this protection of so many gods (whom can anyone number—natives and foreigners, celestials and terrestrials, infernal and marine, of fountains and of rivers, and, as Varro says, certain and uncertain, and in all kinds of gods, as in animals, males and females?) —- under this, therefore, protection of so many gods, Rome, thus established, ought not to have been tossed and afflicted by such great and horrendous disasters, of which from many I shall recount a few.

Nimis enim multos deos grandi fumo suo tamquam signo dato ad tuitionem congregauerat, quibus tampla altaria, sacrificia sacerdotes instituendo atque paraebendo summum uerum Deum, cui uni haec rite gesta debentur, offenderet. Et felicior quidem cum paucioribus uixit, sed quanto maior facta est, sicut nauis nautas, tanto plures adhibendos putauit; credo, desperans pauciores illos, sub quibus in comparatione peioris uitae melius uixerat, non sufficere ad opitulandum granditati suae.

For with her great smoke, as though a signal had been given, she had congregated too many gods for tutelage, and by instituting and providing for them temples, altars, sacrifices, and priests, she offended the supreme true God, to whom alone these things, duly performed, are owed. And indeed she lived more felicitously with fewer; but the greater she became, like a ship its sailors, the more she thought that more were to be employed—I suppose, despairing that those fewer, under whom, in comparison with a worse life, she had lived better, would suffice to give aid to her grandeur.

Primo enim sub ipsis regibus, excepto Numa Pompilio, de quo iam supra locutus sum, quantum malum discordiosi certaminis fuit, quod fratrem Romuli coegit occidi!

For, first, under the kings themselves, except Numa Pompilius, of whom I have already spoken above, what a great evil of discordant contention there was, which compelled the brother of Romulus to be slain!

[XIII] Quo modo nec Iuno, quae cum Ioue suo iam

[13] In like manner not even Juno, who with her own Jove now

fouebat

was cherishing

Romanos rerum dominos gentemque togatam, nec Venus ipsa Aeneidas suos potuit adiuuare, ut bono et aequo more coniungia mererentur, cladesque tanta inruit huius inopiae, ut ea dolo raperent moxque compellerentur pugnare cum soceris, ut miserae feminae nondum ex iniuria maritis conciliatae iam parentum sanguine dotarentur? At enim uicerunt in hac conflictione Romani uicinos suos. Quantis et quam multis utrimque uulneribus et funeribus tam propinquorum et confinium istae uictoriae constiterunt! Propter unum Caesarem socerum et unum generum eius Pompeium iam mortua Caesaris filia, uxore Pompei, quanto et quam iusto doloris instinctu Lucanus exclamat:

the Romans, lords of affairs and the toga-clad race—nor could Venus herself aid her own Aeneads—so that they might merit marriages by a good and equitable custom; and so great a disaster of this scarcity rushed upon them that they seized the women by guile and were soon compelled to fight with their fathers-in-law, so that the wretched women, not yet reconciled to their husbands after the outrage, were already dowered with their parents’ blood? But indeed the Romans prevailed over their neighbors in this affray. By how great and how many wounds and funerals on both sides—of kinsmen and of neighbors—did those victories stand! On account of one Caesar as father-in-law and one son-in-law of his, Pompey—Caesar’s daughter, the wife of Pompey, already dead—with how great and how just an impulse of grief does Lucan cry out:

Bella per Emathios plus quam ciuilia campos

Wars through the Emathian fields, more than civil

Iusque datum sceleri canimus. Vicerunt ergo Romani, ut strage socerorum manibus cruentis ab eorum filiabus amplexus mierabiles extorquerunt, nec illae auderent flere patres occisos, ne offenderent uictores maritos, quae adhuc illis pugnantibus pro quibus facerent uota nesciebant. Talibus nuptiis populum Romanum non Venus, sed Bellona donauit; aut fortassis Allecto illa inferna furia iam eis fauente Iunone plus in illos habuit licentiae, quam cum eius precibus contra Aenean fuerat excitata.

And we sing that even law was given to crime. Therefore the Romans prevailed, so that, with the slaughter of their fathers-in-law, with bloody hands they extorted wondrous embraces from their daughters, nor did those women dare to weep for their slain fathers, lest they offend their victorious husbands, when as yet, while they were fighting, they did not know on whose behalf they should make vows. With such nuptials the Roman people was endowed not by Venus but by Bellona; or perhaps Allecto—that infernal Fury—now with Juno favoring them, had more license against them than when at her prayers she had been aroused against Aeneas.

Andromacha felicius captiuata est, quam illa coniugia Romana nupserunt. Licet seruiles, tamen post eius amplexus nullum Troianorum Pyrrhus occidit; Romani autem soceros interficiebant in proeliis, quorum iam filias amplexabantur in thalamis. Illa uictori subdita dolere tantum suorum mortem potuit, non timere; illae sociatae bellantibus parentum suorum mortes procedentibus uiris timebant, redeuntibus dolebant, nec timorem habentes liberum nec dolorem.

Andromache was more happily taken captive than those Roman unions were wed. Although servile, yet after her embraces Pyrrhus killed none of the Trojans; the Romans, however, were killing in battles their fathers-in-law, whose daughters they were already embracing in the bridal chambers. She, subjected to the victor, could only grieve the death of her own people, not fear; those women, allied to men waging war, feared the deaths of their parents as their men went forth, and grieved when they returned, having neither fear free nor grief.

Nam propter interitum ciuium propinquorum, fratrum parentum aut pie cruciabantur, aut crudeliter laetabantur uictoriis maritorum. Huc accedebat, quod, ut sunt alterna bellorum, aliquae parentum ferro amiserunt uiros, aliquae utrorumque ferro et parentes et uiros. Neque enim et apud Romanos parua fuerunt illa discrimina, si quidem ad obsidionem quoque peruentum est ciuitatis clausisque portis se tuebantur; quibus dolo apertis admissisque hostibus intra moenia in ipso foro scelerata et nimis atrox inter generos socerosque pugna commissa est, et raptores illi etiam superabantur et crebro fugientes inter domos suas grauius foedabant pristinas, quamuis et ipsas pudendas lugendasque uictorias.

For on account of the death of citizens who were their kin—brothers and parents—they were either piously tormented, or cruelly rejoiced at the victories of their husbands. To this was added that, as are the vicissitudes of wars, some lost their husbands by the sword of their parents, and some by the sword of both parties lost both parents and husbands. For even among the Romans those crises were not small, since it even came to a siege of the city, and with the gates shut they were defending themselves; these being opened by guile and the enemies admitted, within the walls, in the very forum, a wicked and exceedingly atrocious battle between sons-in-law and fathers-in-law was joined, and those ravishers were even overcome, and, fleeing frequently among their own houses, they more grievously befouled their former victories—shameful and to be mourned though they were.

Hic tamen Romulus de suorum iam uirtute desperans Iouem orauit ut starent, atque ille hac occasione nomen Statoris inuenit; nec finis esset tanti mali, nisi raptae illae laceratis crinibus emicarent et prouolutae parentibus iram eorum iustissimam non armis uictricibus, sed supplici pietate sedarent. Deinde Titum Tatium regem Sabinorum socium regni Romulus ferre compulsus est, germani consortis inpatiens: sed quando et istum diu toleraret, qui fratrem geminumque non pertulit? Vnde et ipso interfecto, ut maior deus esset, regnum solus obtinut.

Here, however, Romulus, now despairing of the valor of his own men, prayed to Jove that they should stand, and on this occasion he found the name of Stator; nor would there have been an end of so great an evil, had not those ravished women, with torn hair, darted forth and, rolled at their parents’ feet, soothed their most just wrath not with victorious arms, but with suppliant piety. Then Romulus was compelled to bear Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, as partner of the kingdom, impatient of a genuine consort: but how long would he tolerate even this man, who did not endure his brother and twin? Whence, he too having been slain, that he might be a greater god, he held the kingdom alone.

Quae sunt ista iura nuptiarum, quae inritamenta bellorum, quae foedera germanitatis adfinitatis, societatis diuinitatis? quae postremo sub tot diis tutoribus uita ciuitatis? Vides quanta hinc dici et quam multa possent, nisi quae supersunt nostra curaret intentio et sermo in alia festinaret.

What are those laws of nuptials, what incitements of wars, what treaties of brotherhood and affinity, of society and of divinity? what, finally, is the life of the city under so many gods as guardians? You see how great and how many things could be said from here, unless our intention were to care for what remains and our discourse were hastening to other matters.

[XIV] Quid deinde post Numam sub aliis regibus? Quanto malo non solum suo, sed etiam Romanorum in bellum Albani prouocati sunt, quia uidelicet pax Numae tam longa uiluerat! Quam crebrae strages Romani Allbanique exercitus fuerunt et utriusque comminutio ciuitatis!

[14] What then after Numa under the other kings? To how great an evil were the Albans provoked into war, not only their own, but that of the Romans as well, because, evidently, Numa’s peace, so long, had grown cheap! How frequent were the slaughters of the Roman and Alban armies, and the comminution of the city of each!

Alba namque illa, quam filius Aeneae creauit Ascanius, Romae mater propior ipsa quam Troia, a Tullo Hostilio rege prouocata conflixit, confligens autem et adflicta est et adflixit, donec multorum taederet pari defectione certaminum. Tunc euentum belli de tergeminis hinc atque inde fratribus placuit experiri: a Romanis tres Horatii, ab Albanis autem tres Curiatii processrunt; a Curiatiis tribus Horatii duo, ab uno autem Horatio tres Curiatii superati et extincti sunt. Ita Roma extitit uictrix ea clade etiam in certamine extremo, ut de sex unus rediret domum.

For that Alba, which Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, created, the mother of Rome, herself nearer than Troy, when provoked by King Tullus Hostilius, engaged in conflict; and as it fought, it was both afflicted and it afflicted, until many were wearied by the equal defection of the contests. Then it pleased them to test the outcome of the war by triplet brothers on this side and on that: from the Romans three Horatii, but from the Albans three Curiatii stepped forth; of the three Curiatii two Horatii were overcome, but by one Horatius the three Curiatii were overcome and extinguished. Thus Rome stood forth victress by that very disaster even in the ultimate contest, so that out of six one returned home.

Cui damnum in utrisque, cui luctus, nisi Aeneae stirpi nisi Ascanii posteris, nisi proli Veneris nisi nepotibus Iouis? Nam et hoc plus quam ciuile bellum fuit, quando filia ciuitas cum ciuitate matre pugnauit. Accessit aliud huic tergeminorum pugnae ultimae atrox atque horrendum malum.

To whom was the loss on both sides, to whom the grief, if not to the stock of Aeneas, if not to the posterity of Ascanius, if not to the progeny of Venus, if not to the grandchildren of Jupiter? For this too was more than a civil war, when the daughter city fought with the mother city. There was added to this final combat of the triplets another atrocious and horrendous evil.

Nam ut erant ambo populi prius amici (uicini quippe atque cognati), uni Curiatiorum desponsata fuerat Horatiorum soror; haec postea quam sponsi spolia in uictore fratre conspexit, ab eodem fratre, quoniam fleuit, occisa est. Humanior huius unius feminae quam uniuersi populi Romani mihi fuisse uidetur affectus. Illa quem uirum iam fide media retinebat, aut forte etiam ipsum fratrem dolens, qui eum occiderat cui sororem promiserat, puto quod non culpabiliter fleuerit.

For since both peoples had formerly been friends (neighbors indeed and kindred), the sister of the Horatii had been betrothed to one of the Curiatii; this woman, after she beheld her fiancé’s spoils upon her victorious brother, was by that same brother, since she wept, slain. More humane seems to me the affect of this one woman than that of the entire Roman people. The man whom she was already holding by the mutual pledge, or perhaps even grieving for her own brother himself—who had killed him to whom he had promised his sister—I think that she did not weep culpably.

Vnde enim aput Vergilium pius Aeneas laudabiliter dolet hostem etiam sua peremptum manu? Vnde Marcellus Syracusanam ciuitatem recolens eius paulo ante culmen et gloriam sub manus suas subito concidisse communem cogitans condicionem flendo miseratus est? Quaeso ab humano impetremus affectu, ut femina sponsum suum a fratre suo peremptum sine crimine fleuerit, si uiri hostes a se uictos etiam cum laude fleuerunt.

Whence indeed in Vergil does pious Aeneas laudably grieve an enemy even slain by his own hand? Whence did Marcellus, recalling the Syracusan city and thinking that its summit and glory shortly before had suddenly fallen under his hands, by weeping take pity, reflecting on the common condition? I beg, let us obtain from human feeling that a woman wept without blame for her betrothed, slain by her own brother, if men have wept, even with praise, for enemies conquered by themselves.

Ergo sponso a fratre inlatam mortem quando femina illa flebat, tunc se contra matrem ciuitatem tanta strage bellasse et tanta hinc et inde cognati cruoris effusione uicisse Roma gaudebat.

Therefore, when that woman was weeping for the death inflicted upon her fiancé by her brother, then Rome was rejoicing that it had warred against its mother city with such slaughter, and had conquered by such an effusion of kindred blood on this side and that.

Quid mihi obtenditur nomen laudis nomenque uictoriae? Remotis obstaculis insanae opinionis facinora nuda cernantur, nuda pensentur, nuda iudicentur. Causa dicatur Albae, sicut Troiae adulterium dicebatur. Nulla talis nulla similis inuenitur; tantum ut resides moueret

Why is the name of praise and the name of victory being held up to me? With the obstacles of insane opinion removed, let the crimes be seen naked, weighed naked, judged naked. Let a case be pleaded for Alba, just as the adultery of Troy was pleaded. None such, none similar is found; only so much as to stir the sluggish

Tullus in arma uiros et iam desueta triumphis

Tullus called the men to arms, men now unaccustomed to triumphs

Agmina. Illo itaque uitio tantum scelus perpetratum est socialis belli atque cognati, quod uitium Sallustius magnum transeunter adtingit. Cum enim laudans breuiter antiquiora commemorasset tempora, quando uita hominum sine cupiditate agitabatur et sua cuique satis placebant: "Postea uero, inquit, quam in Asia Cyrus, in Graecia lacedaemonii et Athenienses coepere urbes atque nationes subigere, libidinem dominandi causam belli habere, maximam gloriam in maximo imperio putare", et cetera quae ipse instituerat dicere.

Agmines. By that vice, therefore, so great a crime was perpetrated—of a social and kindred war—which great vice Sallust touches on in passing. For when, praising, he had briefly commemorated earlier times, when the life of men was conducted without cupidity and each one’s own things sufficiently pleased each: "Afterwards indeed," he says, "when in Asia Cyrus, in Greece the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians began to subdue cities and nations, to have the lust of domination as a cause of war, to reckon the greatest glory in the greatest empire," and the rest which he himself had undertaken to say.

Mihi huc usque satis sit eius uerba posuisse. Libido ista dominandi magnis malis agitat et conterit humanum genus. Hac libidine Roma tunc uicta Albam se uicisse triumphabat et sui sceleris laudem gloriam nominabat, quoniam laudatur, inquit scriptura nostra, peccator in desideriis animae suae et qui iniqua gerit benedicitur.

For me, let it be enough up to this point to have set down his words. That libido of dominating agitates and crushes the human race with great evils. By this libido Rome, though conquered at that time, was triumphing that it had conquered Alba and was naming the praise of its own crime “glory,” since, says our Scripture, “the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who does iniquities is blessed.”

Fallacia igitur tegmina et deceptoriae dealbationes auferantur a rebus, ut sincero inspiciantur examine. Nemo mihi dicat: Magnus ille atque ille, quia cum illo et illo pugnauit et uicit. Pugnant etiam gladiatores, uincunt et ipsi, habet praemia laudis et illa crudelitas; sed puto esse satius cuiuslibet inertiae poenas luere quam ilorum armorum quaerere gloriam.

Therefore let the fallacious coverings and the deceptive whitewashings be removed from things, that they may be inspected by a sincere examination. Let no one say to me: “This man or that man is great, because he fought with so‑and‑so and conquered.” Gladiators also fight, they too win; even that cruelty has the rewards of praise. But I think it is more satisfactory to pay the penalties of any inertia than to seek the glory of those arms.

Et tamen si in harenam procederent pugnaturi inter se gladiatores, quorum alter filius, alter esset pater, tale spectaculum quis ferret? quis non auferret? Quo modo ergo gloriosum alterius matris, alterius filiae ciuitatis inter se armorum potuit esse certamen?

And yet, if gladiators, about to fight among themselves, were to proceed into the arena, of whom the one would be the son, the other the father, who would endure such a spectacle? who would not remove it? How, then, could a glorious contest of arms between cities—the one a mother, the other a daughter—have existed between themselves?

An ideo diuersum fuit, quod harena illa non fuit, et latiores campi non duorum gladiatorum, sed in duobus populis multorum funeribus implebantur, nec amphitheatro cingebantur illa certamina, sed uniuerso obri, et tunc uiuis et postris, quo usque ista fama porrigitur, impium spectaculum praebebatur?

Was it therefore different for this reason, that that was not an arena, and the broader fields were being filled, not by two gladiators, but, among two peoples, with the funerals of many; nor were those contests ringed by an amphitheatre, but by the whole world, and an impious spectacle was being offered then to the living and to posterity, in so far as this fame extends?

Vim tamen patiebantur studii sui dii illi praesides imperii Romani et talium certaminum tamquam theatrici spectatores, donec Horatiorum soror propter Curiatios tres peremptos etiam ipsa tertia ex altera parte fraterno ferro dubus fratribus adderetur, ne minus haberet mortium etiam Roma quae uicerat. Deinde ad fructum uictoriae Alba subuersa est, ubi post Ilium, quod Graeci euerterunt, et post Lauinium, ubi Aeneas regnum peregrinum atque fugituum constituerat, tertio loco habitauerant numina illa Troiana. Sed more suo etiam inde iam fortasse migrauerant, ideo deleta est.

Yet those gods, presiding over the Roman empire and over such contests, endured the force of their own partisanship like theatrical spectators, until the sister of the Horatii, on account of the three Curiatii slain, she too, a third from the other side, by fraternal steel was added to her two brothers, lest Rome, though she had conquered, should have fewer deaths. Then, as the fruit of victory, Alba was subverted, where—after Ilium, which the Greeks overturned, and after Lavinium, where Aeneas had established a peregrine and fugitive kingdom—those Trojan numina had dwelt in a third place. But, according to their custom, perhaps by now they had even migrated from there as well; therefore it was destroyed.

Discesserant uidelicet omnes adytis arisque relictis di, quibus imperium illud steterat. Discesserant sane ecce iam tertio, ut eis quarta Roma prouidentissime crederetur. Displicuerat enim et Alba, ubi Amulius expulso fratre, et Roma placuerat, ubi Romulus occiso fratre regnauerat.

All the gods, by whom that imperium had stood, had, namely, departed, the adyta and altars left behind. They had departed indeed—behold—now for the third time, so that the fourth, Rome, might most providently be entrusted to them. For Alba too had displeased them, where Amulius, his brother having been expelled; and Rome had pleased them, where Romulus, his brother having been slain, had reigned.

Sed antequam Alba dirueretur, transfusus est, inquiunt, populus eius in Romam, ut ex tutraque una ciuitas fieret. Esto, ita factum sit; urbs tamen illa, Ascanii regnum et tertium domicilium Troianorum deorum, ab urbe filia mater euersa est; ut autem belli reliquiae ex duobus populis unum facerent, miserabile coagulum multus ante fusus utriusque sanguis fuit. Quid iam singillatim dicam sub ceteris regibus totiens eadem bella renouata, quae uictoriis finita uidebantur, et tantis stragibus iterum iterumque confecta, iterum iterumque post foedus et pacem inter soceros et generos et eorum stirpem posterosque repetita?

But before Alba was torn down, its people, they say, were transfused into Rome, so that from both one city might be made. Granted, let it be so; yet that city, the kingdom of Ascanius and the third domicile of the Trojan gods, by the daughter-city the mother was overthrown; and in order that the remnants of war might make from two peoples one, the miserable coagulum was the much blood of each poured out beforehand. What now should I say in detail of the same wars, so often renewed under the other kings, which seemed finished by victories, and again and again brought to an end with such slaughters, again and again, after a treaty and peace between fathers-in-law and sons-in-law and their stock and descendants, repeated?

non paruum indicium calamitatis huius fuit, quod portas belli nullus clausit illorum. Nullus ergo illorum sub tot diis praesidibus in pace regnauit.

Not a small indication of this calamity was that none of them closed the Gates of War. Therefore none of them, under so many presiding gods, reigned in peace.

[XV] Ipsorum autem regum qui exitus fuerunt? De Romulo uiderit adulatio fabulosa, qua perhibetur receptus in caelum; uiderint quidam scriptores eorum, qui eum propter ferocitatem a senatu discerptum esse dixerunt subornatumque nescio quem Iulium Proculum, qui eum sibi apparuisse diceret eumque per se populo mandasse Romano, ut inter numina coleretur, eoque modo populum, qui contra senatum intumescere coeperat, repressum atque sedatum. Acciderat enim et solis defectio, quam certa ratione sui cursus effectam imperita nesciens multitudo meritis Romuli tribuebat.

[15] But what were the exits of the kings themselves? As for Romulus, let fabulous adulation look to it, by which he is purported to have been received into heaven; let certain of their writers look to it, who said that he, on account of his ferocity, was torn to pieces by the senate, and that I-know-not-what Julius Proculus was suborned, to say that he had appeared to him and had, through him, instructed the Roman people that he be worshiped among the numina; and in that way the people, who had begun to swell against the senate, was repressed and quieted. For there had also occurred an eclipse of the sun, which, effected by the sure law of its course, the unskilled, unknowing multitude was attributing to the merits of Romulus.

Quasi uero si luctus ile solis fuisset, non magis ideo credi deberet occisus ipsumque scelus auersione etiam diurni luminis indicatum; sicut re uera factum est, cum Dominus crucifixus est crudelitate atque impietate Iudaeorum. Quam solis obscrationem non ex canonico siderum cursu accidisse satis ostendit, quod tunc erat pascha Iudaeorum; namplena luna sollemniter agitur, regularis autem solis defectio non nisi lunae fine contingit. Satis et Cicero illam inter deos Romuli receptionem putatam magis significat esse quam factam, quando et laudans eum in libris de re publica Scipionisque sermone: "Tantum est, inquit, consecutus, ut, cum subito sole obscurato non comparuisset, deorum in numero conlocatus putaretur, quam opinionem nemo umquam mortalis assequi potuit sine eximia uirtutis gloria." (Quod autem dicit eum subito non comparuisse, profecto ibi intellegitur aut uiolentia tempestatis aut caedis facionorisque secretum; nam et alii scriptores eorum defectioni solis addunt etiam subitam tempestatem, quae profecto aut occasionem sceleri praebuit aut Romulum ipsa consumpsit.) De tullo quippe etiam Hostilio, qui tertius a Romulo rex fuit, qui et ipse fulmine absumptus est, dicit in eisdem libris idem Cicero, propterea et istum non creditum in deos receptum tali morte, quia fortasse quod erat in Romulo probatu, id est persuasum, Romani uulgare noluerunt, id est uile facere, si hoc et alteri facile tribueretur.

As though, in truth, if that mourning of the sun had been for him alone, it ought any the more on that account to be believed that he was slain, and that the crime itself was indicated by the turning away even of the diurnal light; just as in very deed it happened when the Lord was crucified by the cruelty and impiety of the Jews. Which obscuration of the sun is sufficiently shown not to have occurred from the canonical course of the stars, because then it was the Passover of the Jews; for it is celebrated at the full moon, whereas a regular defect (eclipse) of the sun happens only at the end of the moon. Cicero too sufficiently signifies that that reception of Romulus among the gods was thought rather than done, when, even as he praises him in the books On the Republic, in Scipio’s discourse: “He achieved so much,” he says, “that, when the sun was suddenly darkened and he did not appear, he was thought to have been placed in the number of the gods, an opinion which no mortal has ever been able to attain without an extraordinary glory of virtue.” (But what he says, that he did not appear suddenly, assuredly there is understood either the violence of a tempest or the secrecy of slaughter and crime; for other writers of theirs add to the sun’s eclipse also a sudden storm, which surely either provided an occasion for the crime or consumed Romulus himself.) As for Tullus also, Hostilius, who was the third king after Romulus, who likewise was consumed by lightning, the same Cicero says in those same books that for this reason he too was not believed to have been received among the gods by such a death, because perhaps what was approved in the case of Romulus—that is, what had been persuaded—the Romans did not wish to make vulgar, that is, to make cheap, if this were easily attributed to another as well.

Dicit etiam aperte in inuectiuis: "Illum, qui hanc urbem condidit, Romulum ad deos immortales beniuolentia famaque sustulimus", ut non uere factum, sed propter merita uirtutis eius beniuole iactatum diffamatumque monstraret. In Hortensio uero dialogo cum de solis canonicis defectionibus loqueretur: "Vt easem, inquit, tenebras efficiat, quas efficit <in> interitu Romuli, qui obscuratione solis est factus." Certe hic minime timuit hominis interitum dicere, quia disputator magis quam laudator fuit.

He also says openly in his invectives: "That man, who founded this city, Romulus, we have lifted up to the immortal gods by benevolence and by fame," so as to show it was not truly done, but benevolently vaunted and bruited abroad on account of the merits of his virtue. In the dialogue Hortensius, indeed, when he was speaking about the canonical eclipses of the sun: "So that it may produce the same darkness which it produces at the demise of Romulus, which was effected by the obscuration of the sun." Certainly here he in no wise feared to say the demise of the man, because he was a disputant rather than a laudator.

Ceteri autem reges populi Romani, excepto Numa Pompilio et Anco Marcio, qui morbo interierunt, quam horrendos exitus habuerunt! Tullus, ut dixi, Hostilius, uictor et euersor Albae, cum tota domo sua fulmine concrematus est. Priscus Tarquinius per sui decessoris filios interemptus est.

But the other kings of the Roman people, except Numa Pompilius and Ancus Marcius, who died of disease, what horrendous exits they had! Tullus, as I said, Hostilius, the victor and overturner of Alba, was burned up by lightning along with his whole house. Priscus Tarquinius was slain by the sons of his predecessor.

Seruius Tullius generi sui Tarquinii Superbi, qui ei successit in regnum, nefario scelere occisus est. Nec "discessere adytis arisque relictis di" tanto in optimum illius populi regem parricidio perpetrato, quos dicunt, ut hoc miserae Troiae facerent eamque graecis diruendam exurendamque relinquerent, adulterio Paridis fuisse commotos; sed insuper interfecto a se socero Tarquinius ipse sucessit. Hunc illi dii nefarium parricidam soceri interfectione regnantem, insuper multis bellis uictoriisque gloriantem et de manubiis Capitolium fabricantem non abscedentes, sed praesentes manentesque uiderunt et regem suum Iouem in illo altissimo templo, hoc est in opere parricidae, sibi praesidere atque regnare perpessi sunt.

Servius Tullius was slain by the nefarious crime of his son-in-law, Tarquinius Superbus, who succeeded him in the kingship. Nor “did the gods depart, with the adyta and altars left behind,” upon so great a parricide perpetrated against that people’s best king, as they say they were stirred to do for wretched Troy—so that they might leave it to be torn down and burned by the Greeks—by the adultery of Paris; but moreover, with his father-in-law slain by himself, Tarquinius himself succeeded. Him those gods—not withdrawing, but present and remaining—beheld, a nefarious parricide, reigning by the slaughter of his father-in-law, and, what is more, boasting in many wars and victories and building the Capitol from the spoils; and they allowed their king Jupiter to preside and reign for them in that most lofty temple, that is, in the work of the parricide.

Neque enim adhuc innocens Capitolium struxit et postea malis meritis Vrbe pulsus est, sed ad ipsum regnum, in quo Capitolium fabricaret, inmanissimi sceleris perpetratione peruenit. Quod uero eum regno Romani postea depulerunt ac secluserunt moenibus ciuitatis, non ipsius de Lucretiae stupro, sed filii peccatum fuit illo non solum nesciente, sed etiam absente commissum. Ardeam ciuitatem tunc oppugnabat, pro populo Romano bellum gerebat; nescimus quid faceret, si ad eius notitiam flagitium filii deferretur; et tamen inexplorato iudicio eius et inexperto ei populus ademit imperium et recepto exercitu, a quo deseri iussus est, clausis deinde portis non siuit intrare redeuntem.

For he did not, still innocent, build the Capitol and afterwards, by evil deserts, get driven from the City; rather, he arrived at the very kingship in which he would build the Capitol by the perpetration of a most inhuman crime. But that the Romans later drove him from the kingship and shut him out from the walls of the city was due not to his own part in the rape of Lucretia, but to the sin of his son, committed with him not only unaware, but even absent. He was then besieging the city of Ardea; he was waging war on behalf of the Roman people; we do not know what he would have done, if the flagitious crime of his son had been reported to his notice; and yet, with his judgment unexamined and he himself untried, the people took away his imperium, and, after the army—by which he had been ordered to be deserted—was received back, then, the gates having been shut, they did not allow him, returning, to enter.

At ille post bella grauissima, quibus eosdem Romanos concitatis finitimis adtriuit, postea quam desertus ab eis quorum fidebat auxilio regnum recipere non eualuit, in oppido Tusculo Romae uicino quttuordecim, ut fertur, annos priuatam uitam quietus habuit et cum uxore consenuit, optabiliore fortassis exitu quam socer eius, generi sui facinore nec ignorante filia, sicut perhibetur, extinctus. Nec tamen istum Tarquinium Romani crudelem aut sceleratum, sed superbum appelauerunt, fortasse regios eius fastus alia superbia non ferentes. Nam scelus occisi ab eo soceri optimi regis sui usque adeo contempserunt, ut eum regem suum facerent; ubi miror, si non scelere grauiore mercedem tantam tanto sceleri reddiderunt.

But he, after the most grievous wars, by which, the neighboring peoples having been stirred up, he wore down those same Romans, after he had been deserted by those on whose help he trusted and was not able to recover the kingship, in the town of Tusculum near Rome, for fourteen years, as it is said, held a private life in quiet and grew old with his wife, with an end perhaps more to be desired than his father-in-law—extinguished, as is reported, by the deed of his own son-in-law, his daughter not ignorant. Nor yet did the Romans call that Tarquin cruel or criminal, but Proud, perhaps not bearing his royal haughtiness through another pride of their own. For they so far contemned the crime of the slaying by him of his father-in-law, their best king, that they made him their king; wherein I marvel whether they did not repay so great a crime with a more grievous crime, rendering so great a recompense to so great a crime.

Nec "discessere adytis arisque relictis di." Nisi forte quispiam sic defendat istos deos, ut dicat eos ideo mansisse Romae, quo possent magis Romanos punire suppliciis quam beneficiis adiuuare, seducentes eos uanis uictoriis et bellis grauissimis conterentes.

Nor did “the gods depart, the inner sanctuaries and altars left behind.” Unless perhaps someone should defend those gods thus, saying that they therefore remained at Rome, in order that they might be able rather to punish the Romans with punishments than to aid them with benefits, seducing them with vain victories and crushing them with most grievous wars.

Haec fuit Romanorum uita sub regibus laudabili tempore illius rei publicae usque ad expulsionem Tarquinii Superbi per ducentos ferme et squadraginta et tres annos, cum illae omnes uictoriae tam multo sanguine et tantis emptae calamitatibus uix illud imperium intra uiginti ab Vrbe milia dilatauerint; quantum spatium absit ut saltem alicuius Getulae ciuitatis nunc terriotiro comparetur.

This was the life of the Romans under the kings, in the laudable time of that commonwealth, up to the expulsion of Tarquinius the Proud, for almost 243 years, when all those victories, purchased with so much blood and such great calamities, had scarcely extended that dominion to within twenty miles from the City; how far it is from being comparable even to the territory of some Getulian city now.

[XVI] Huic tempori adiciamus etiam tempus illud ,quo usque dicit Sallustius aequo et modesto iure agitatum, dum metus a Tarquinio et bellum graue cum Etruria positum est. Quamdiu enim Etrusci Tarquinio in regnum redire conanti opitulati sunt, graui bello Roma concussa est. Ideo dicit aequo et modesto iure gestam rem publicam metu premente, non persuadente iustitia.

[16] To this time let us add also that time ,up to which Sallust says it was conducted under equitable and modest law, while fear from Tarquin and a grave war with Etruria was in place. For as long as the Etruscans gave aid to Tarquin as he tried to return into the kingship, Rome was shaken by a grave war. Therefore he says the republic was managed under equitable and modest law, with fear pressing, not with justice persuading.

In quo breuissimo tempore quam funestus ille annus fuit, quo primi consules creati sunt expulsa regia potestate! Annum quippe suum non compleuerunt. Nam Iunius Brutus exhonoratum eiecit Vrbe collegam Lucium Tarquinium Collatinum; deinde mox ipse in bello cecidit mutuis cum hoste uulneribus, occisis a se <ipso> primitus filiis suis et uxoris suae fratribus, quod eos pro restituendo Tarquinio coniurasse cognouerat.

In which most brief time, how funest that year was, in which the first consuls were created, the royal power having been expelled! For indeed they did not complete their year. For Junius Brutus cast out from the City his colleague Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, dishonored; then soon he himself fell in war, with mutual wounds with the enemy, having first slain by himself his own sons and his wife’s brothers, because he had learned that they had conspired for restoring Tarquinius.

Quod factum Vergilius postea quam laudabiliter commemorauit, continuo clementer exhorruit. Cum enim dixisset:

Which deed Vergil afterwards, how laudably, commemorated, he straightway shuddered clemently. For when he had said:

Natosque pater noua bella mouentes

And the father, his sons setting new wars in motion

Ad poenam pulchra pro libertate uocabit, mox deinde exclamauit et ait:

He will call to punishment what is fair for liberty, soon then he exclaimed and said:

Infelix, utcumque ferent ea facta minores. Quomodo libet, inquit, ea facta posteri ferant, id est praeferant et extollant, qui filios occidit, infelix est. Et tamquam ad consolandum infelicem subiunxit:

Unhappy, however the descendants may bear those deeds. However it may be, he said, however posterity may bear those deeds, that is, prefer and extol them, he who has killed his sons is unhappy. And as if to console the unhappy man, he subjoined:

Vincit amor patriae laudumque inmensa cupido. Nonne in hoc Bruto, quiet filios occidit et a se percusso hosti filio Tarquinii mutuo percussus superuiuere non potuit eique potius ipse Tarquinius superuixit, Collatini collegae uidetur innocentia uindicata, qui bonus ciuis hoc Tarquinio pulso passus est, quod tyrannus ipse Tarquinius? Nam et idem Brutus consanguineus Tarquinii fuisse perhibetur; sed Collatinum uidelicet similitudo nominis pressit, quia etiam Tarquinius uocabatur.

Love of fatherland and an immense desire for praises prevails. Is it not in this Brutus, who also killed his sons and, with the enemy—the son of Tarquin—struck by himself, being struck in turn could not survive, and to him rather Tarquin himself survived, that the innocence of his colleague Collatinus seems to have been vindicated, who, a good citizen, with this Tarquin expelled, suffered that which the tyrant Tarquin himself did? For this same Brutus too is held to have been a kinsman of Tarquin; but the likeness of the name evidently pressed upon Collatinus, because he too was called Tarquinius.

Multaere ergo nomen, non patriam cogeretur; postremo in eius nomine hoc uocabulum minus esset, L. Collatinus tantummodo uocaretur. Sed ideo non amisit quod sine ullo detrimento posset amittere, ut et honore primus consul et ciuitate bonus ciuis carere iuberetur. Etiamne ista est gloria, Iunii Bruti detestanda iniquitas et nihilo utilis rei publicae?

Therefore he would be compelled to change his name, not his fatherland; finally, in his name this appellation would be less, he would be called L. Collatinus only. But for that reason he did not lose what he could lose without any detriment, so that he was ordered to be deprived both of his honor as first consul and, though a good citizen, of his citizenship. Is even this glory—the detestable iniquity of Junius Brutus and in no way useful to the Republic?

Etiamne ad hanc perpetrandam "uicit amor patriae laudumque inmensa cupido"? Iam expulso utique Tarquinio tyranno consul cum Bruto creatus est maritus Lucretiae L. Tarquinius Collatinus. Quam iuste populus mores in ciue, non nomen adtendit! Quam impie Brutus collegam primae ac nouae illius potestatis, quem posset, si hoc offendebatur, nomine tantum priuare, et patria priuauit et honore!

Was even for accomplishing this “the love of fatherland and the immense desire of lauds” victorious? Now, with Tarquinius the tyrant of course expelled, the husband of Lucretia, L. Tarquinius Collatinus, was created consul together with Brutus. How justly did the people attend to character in a citizen, not to the name! How impiously did Brutus deprive his colleague of that first and new power, whom he could, if he was offended at this, deprive only of the name, and he deprived him both of fatherland and of honor!

Haec mala facta sunt, haec aduersa acciderunt, quando in illa re publica "aequo et modesto iure agitatum est." Lucretius quoque, qui in locum Bruti fuerat subrogatus, morbo, antequam idem annus terminaretur, absumptus est. Ita P. Valerius, qui successerat Collatino, et M. Horatius, qui pro defuncto Lucretio suffectus fuerat, annum illum funereum atque tartareum, qui consules quinque habuit, compleuerunt, quo anno consulatus ipsius nouum honorem ac potestatem auspicata est Romana res publica.

These evils were done, these adversities befell, when in that commonwealth “it was conducted by an equal and modest law.” Lucretius too, who had been substituted in the place of Brutus, was consumed by disease before the same year was brought to its end. Thus P. Valerius, who had succeeded Collatinus, and M. Horatius, who had been suffect in place of the deceased Lucretius, completed that funereal and Tartarean year, which had five consuls, in which year the Roman res publica inaugurated for the consulship a new honor and authority.

[XVII] Tunc iam deminuto paululum metu, non quia bella conquieuerant, sed quia non tam graui pondere urgebant, finito scilicet tempore, quo aequo iure ac modesto agitatum est, secuta sunt quae idem Sallustius breuiter explicat: "dein seruili imperio patres plebem exercere, de uita atque tergo regio more consulere, agro pellere et ceteris expertibus soli in imperio agere. Quibus saeuitiis et maxime faenore oppressa plebes, cum assiduis bellis tributum et militiam simul toleraret, armata montem sacrum atque Auentinum insedit, tumque tribunos plebis et alia iura sibi parauit. Discordiarum et certaminis utrimque finis fuit secundum bellum Punicum." Quid itaque ego tantas moras uel scribens patiar, uel lecturis adferam?

[17] Then, with the fear now a little diminished, not because the wars had grown quiet, but because they did not press with so heavy a weight, the period, namely, having ended in which things were conducted under equal and modest law, there followed what the same Sallust briefly explains: "then under a servile rule the Fathers to drill/harry the plebs, to deliberate about life and back in royal fashion, to drive them from their land, and, the rest being excluded, to act alone in power. By these savageries, and especially by usury, the plebs, while with unremitting wars it was bearing tribute and military service at once, took up arms and occupied the Sacred Mount and the Aventine, and then procured for itself tribunes of the plebs and other rights. The end of discords and of contest on both sides was the Second Punic War." Why therefore should I suffer such delays in writing, or bring them upon those who will read?

Quam misera fuerit illa res publica, tam longa aetate per toto annos usque ad secundum bellum Punicum bellis forinsecus inquietare non desistentibus et intus discordiis seditionibusque ciuilibus, a Sallustio breuiter intimatum est. Proinde uictoriae illae non solida beatorum gaudia fuerunt, sed inania solacia miserorum et ad alia atque alia sterilia mala subeunda inlecebrosa incitamenta minime quietorum. Nec nobis, quia hoc dicimus, boni Romani prudentesque suscenseant: quamquam de hac re nec petendi sint nec monendi, quando eos minime suscensuros esse certissimum est.

How wretched that Republic was—through so long an age, throughout all the years up to the Second Punic War—with wars from without not ceasing to disquiet it, and within with discords and civil seditions, has been briefly intimated by Sallust. Accordingly, those victories were not the solid joys of the blessed, but empty solaces of the wretched and alluring incitements for the far-from-quiet to undergo other and yet other barren evils. Nor let good and prudent Romans be angry with us because we say this: although in this matter they ought neither to be petitioned nor admonished, since it is most certain that they will by no means be angry.

Neque enim grauius uel grauiora dicimus auctoribus eorum et stilo et otio multum impares; quibus tamen ediscendis et ipsi elaborauerunt et filios suos elaborare compellunt. Qui autem suscensent, quando me ferrent, si ego dicerem, quod Sallustius ait? "plurimae turbae, seditiones et ad postremum bella ciuilia orta sunt, dum pauci potentes, quorum in gratiam plerique concesserant, sub honesto patrum aut plebis nomine dominationes adfectabant; bonique et mali ciues appellati, non ob merita in rem publicam, omnibus pariter corruptis, sed uti quisque locupletissimus et iniuria ualidior, quia praesentia defendebat, pro bono ducebatur." Porro si illi scriptores historiae ad honestam libertatem pertinere arbitrati sunt mala ciuitatis propriae non tacere, quam multis locis magno praeconio laudare compulsi sunt, cum aliam ueriorem, quo ciues aterni legendi sunt, non haberent: quid nos facere conuenit, quorum spes quanto in Deo melior et certior, tanto maior debet esse libertas, cum mala praesentia Christo nostro inputant, ut infirmiores imperitioresque mentes alienentur ab ea ciuitate, in qua sola iugiter feliciterque uiuendum est?

For we do not speak more gravely, nor say graver things, than their own authors, to whom we are very unequal in both style and leisure; and yet they themselves have labored to have these authors thoroughly learned, and compel their sons to labor likewise. But those who take offense—how would they endure me, if I were to say what Sallust says? “Very many tumults, seditions, and at last civil wars arose, while a few powerful men, in whose favor most had yielded, under the honorable name of ‘the fathers’ or ‘the plebs,’ were aiming at dominations; and citizens were called good and bad, not on account of merits toward the commonwealth, since all alike were corrupted, but just as each one was the wealthier and stronger by injustice, because he was defending present conditions, he was reckoned as good.” Moreover, if those writers of history judged it to pertain to honest liberty not to keep silence about the evils of their own city, which in many places they were compelled with great proclamation to praise, since they had no other truer one, in which citizens are eternal, to be read: what is fitting for us to do—whose hope, in proportion as it is better and more certain in God, ought to be so much the greater liberty—when they impute the present evils to our Christ, so that weaker and more unskilled minds are alienated from that city in which alone it is to be lived continually and happily?

Nec in deos eorum horribiliora nos dicimus, quam eorum identidem auctores, quos legunt et praedicant, quando quidem et ex ipsis quae diceremus accepimus, et nullo modo dicere uel talia uel cuncta sufficimus.

Nor do we say more horrible things about their gods than do their own authors again and again, whom they read and proclaim; since indeed from those very ones we have received what we would say, and in no way are we sufficient to say either such things or all of them.

Vbi ergo erant illi dii, qui propter exiguam fallacemque mundi huius felicitatem colendi existimantur, cum Romani, quibus se colendos mendacissima astutia uenditabant, tantis calamitatibus uexarentur? Vbi erant, quando Valerius consul ab exulibus et seruis incensum Capitolium cum defensaret occisus est faciliusque ipse prodesse potuit aedi Iouis, quam illi turba tot numinum cum suo maximo atque optimo rege, cuius templum liberauerat, subuenire? Vbi erant, quando densissimis fatigata ciuitas seditionum malis, cum legatos Athenas missos ad leges mutuandas paululum quieta opperiretur, graui fame pestilentiaque uastata est?

Where then were those gods, who are thought to be worshiped on account of the meager and fallacious felicity of this world, when the Romans, to whom they were peddling themselves to be worshiped with most mendacious craft, were harried by such calamities? Where were they, when the consul Valerius, while defending the Capitol set ablaze by exiles and slaves, was slain, and he himself could more easily be of service to the shrine of Jove than that throng of so many divinities, together with their Greatest and Best king—whose temple he had freed—could come to his aid? Where were they, when the city, wearied by the densest evils of seditions, while, somewhat at rest, it awaited the legates sent to Athens to borrow laws, was laid waste by grievous famine and pestilence?

Vbi erant, quando rursus populus, cum fame laboraret, praefectum annonae primum creauit, atque illa fame inualescente Spurius Maelius, quia esurienti multitudini frumenta largitus est, regni adfectati crimen incurrit et eiusdem praefecti instantia per dictatorem, L. Quintium aetate decrepitum a Quinto Seruilio magistro equitum cum maximo et periculosissimo tumultu ciuitatis occisus est? Vbi erant, quando pestilentia maxima exorta diis inutilibus populus diu multumque fatigatus noua lectisternia, quod numquam antea fecerat, exhibenda arbitratus est? Lecti autem sternebantur in honorem deorum, unde hoc sacrum uel potius sacrilegium nomen accepit.

Where were they, when again the people, as it labored under famine, first created a prefect of the grain-supply (praefectus annonae), and, as that famine grew strong, Spurius Maelius, because he had bestowed grain upon the starving multitude, incurred the charge of aiming at kingship, and, at the urgency of that same prefect, by the dictator, Lucius Quinctius, decrepit with age, was slain by Quintus Servilius, the master of horse, with the greatest and most perilous tumult of the state? Where were they, when, a very great pestilence having arisen, the people, long and much wearied by useless gods, judged that new lectisternia, which it had never before done, should be exhibited? Now couches were spread in honor of the gods, whence this sacred rite—or rather sacrilege—received its name.

Vbi erant, quando per decem continuos annos male pugnando crebras et magnas clades apud Veios exercitus Romanus acceperat, nisi per Furium Camillum tandem subueniretur, quem postea ciuitas ingrata damnauit? Vbi erant, quando Galli Romam ceperunt spoliauerunt, incenderunt caedibus impleuerunt? Vbi erant, cum illa insignis pestilentia tam ingentem stragem dedit, qua et ille Furius Camillus extinctus est, qui rem publicam ingratam et a Veientibus ante defendit et de Gallis postea uindicauit?

Where were they, when for ten continuous years, by fighting badly, the Roman army had received frequent and great disasters at Veii, unless at last succor were brought through Furius Camillus—whom afterwards the ungrateful commonwealth condemned? Where were they, when the Gauls seized Rome, despoiled it, set it on fire, filled it with slaughters? Where were they, when that notable pestilence dealt so huge a carnage, by which that same Furius Camillus was extinguished, who both earlier defended the ungrateful republic from the Veientines and afterwards avenged it upon the Gauls?

In hac pestilentia scaenicos ludos aliam nouam pestem non corporibus Romanorum, sed, quod est multo perniciosius, moribus intulerunt. Vbi erant, quando alia pestilentia grauis de uenenis matronarum exorta credita est, quarum supra fidem multarum atque nobilium mores deprehensi sunt omni pestilentia grauiores? uel quando in Caudinas furculas a Samnitibus obsessi ambo cum exercitu consules foedus cum eis foedum facere coacti sunt, ita ut equitibus Romanis sescentis obsidibus datis ceteri amissis armis aliisque spoliati priuatique tegminibus sub iugum hostium in uestimentis singulis mitterentur?

In this pestilence the theatrical games brought in another new plague, not upon the bodies of the Romans, but—what is much more pernicious—upon their morals. Where were they, when another grievous pestilence was believed to have arisen from the poisons of matrons, whose conduct—of very many, and noble ones too—was discovered, beyond belief, to be graver than any pestilence? or when at the Caudine Forks, besieged by the Samnites, both consuls with the army were forced to make with them a shameful treaty, such that, with 600 Roman horsemen given as hostages, the rest, their arms lost and stripped of other gear and deprived of coverings, were sent under the enemies’ yoke in a single garment apiece?

uel quando graui pestilentia ceteris laborantibus multi etiam in exercitu icti fulmine perierunt? uel quando item alia intolerabili pestilentia Aesculapium ab Epidauro quasi medicum deum Roma aduocare atque adhibere compulsa est, quoniam regem omnium Iouem, qui iam diu in Capitolio sedebat, multa stupra, quibus adulescens uacauerat, non permiserant fortasse discere medicinam? uel cum conspirantibus uno tempore hostibus Lucanis, Bruttiis, Samnitibus, Etruscis et Senonibus Gallis primo ab eis legati perempti sunt, deinde cum praetore oppressus exercitus septem tribunis cum illo pereuntibus et militum tredecim milibus?

or when, while the others were laboring under a grave pestilence, many even in the army, struck by lightning, perished? or when likewise, by another intolerable pestilence, Rome was compelled to call in and employ Aesculapius from Epidaurus as a physician god, since the king of all, Jove, who had already for a long time been sitting on the Capitol, had perhaps not been permitted by the many debaucheries with which, as a youth, he had had leisure, to learn medicine? or when, with the enemies conspiring at one time—the Lucanians, Bruttians, Samnites, Etruscans, and Senonian Gauls—first the legates were slain by them, then the army, together with the praetor, was overwhelmed, seven tribunes perishing with him, and thirteen thousand of the soldiers?

uel quando post longas et graues Romae seditiones, quibus ad ultimum plebs in Ianiculum hostili diremptione secesserat, huius mali tam dira calamitas erat, ut eius rei causa, quod in extremis periculis fieri solebat, dictator crearetur Hortensius, qui plebe reuocata in eodem magistratu exspirauit, quod plebe reuocata in eodem magistratu exspirauit, quod nulli dictatori ante contigerat et quod illis diis iam praesente Aesculapio grauius crimen fuit?

or when, after long and grave seditions at Rome, in which at the last the plebs had seceded to the Janiculum by a hostile sundering, the calamity of this evil was so dire that, for this reason—what was accustomed to be done in extreme perils—a dictator was created, Hortensius, who, with the plebs recalled, expired in the same magistracy, with the plebs recalled, expired in the same magistracy, which had befallen no dictator before and which, with those gods, Aesculapius now being present, was a graver crime?

Tum uero tam multa bella ubique crebruerunt, ut inopia militum proletarii illi, qui eo, quod proli gignendae uacabant, ob egestatem militare non ualentes hoc nomen acceperant, militiae conscriberentur. Accitus etiam a Tarentinis Pyrrhus, rex Graeciae, tunc ingenti gloria celebratus, Romanorum hostis effectus est. Cui sane de rerum futuro euentu consulenti satis urbane Apollo sic ambiguum oraculum edidit, ut, e duobus quidquid accidisset, ipse diuinus haberetur (ait enim: "Dico te, Pyrrhe, uincere posse Romanos") atque ita, siue Pyrrhus a Romanis siue Romani a Pyrrho uincerentur, securus fatidicus utrumlibet expectaret euentum.

Then indeed so many wars everywhere grew frequent, that, from a shortage of soldiers, those proletarians, who had received this name because, being free for begetting offspring, they, on account of indigence, were not able to serve as soldiers, were conscripted into military service. Summoned also by the Tarentines, Pyrrhus, king of Greece, then celebrated with great glory, became an enemy of the Romans. And to him, when he consulted about the future outcome of affairs, Apollo quite urbanely issued such an ambiguous oracle that, whichever of the two might happen, he himself would be held divine (for he said: "I say that you, Pyrrhus, are able to conquer the Romans") and thus, whether Pyrrhus were conquered by the Romans or the Romans by Pyrrhus, the seer, secure, might await either outcome.

Quae tunc et quam horrenda utriusque exercitus clades! In qua tamen superior Pyrrhus extitit, ut iam posset Apollinem pro suo intellectu praedicare diuinum, nisi proxime alio proelio Romani abscederent superiores. Atque in tanta strage bellorum etiam pestilentia grauis exorta est mulierum.

What then, and how horrendous, was the disaster of both armies! In this, however, Pyrrhus proved superior, so that he could now proclaim Apollo divine according to his own interpretation, except that shortly thereafter in another battle the Romans withdrew as victors. And amid such a slaughter of wars, a grievous pestilence also arose among the women.

Nam priusquam maturos partus ederent, grauidae moriebantur. Vbi se, credo, Aesculapius excusabat, quod archiatrum, non obstetricem profitebatur. Pecudes quoque similiter interibant, ita ut etiam defecturum genus animalium crederetur.

For before they could bring forth mature births, the gravid women were dying. On which occasion, I suppose, Aesculapius excused himself, because he professed himself an archiater, not an obstetrician. The herd-animals likewise were perishing, so that it was even believed that the race of animals would fail.

Quid? hiems illa memorabilis tam incredibili inmanitate saeuiens, ut niuibus horrenda altitudine etiam in foro per dies quadraginta manentibus Tiberis quoque glacie duraretur, si nostris temporibus accidisset, quae isti et quanta dixissent! Quid?

What? That memorable winter, raging with such incredible ferocity, that, with snows of horrendous altitude lingering even in the Forum for forty days, the Tiber too was hardened with ice—if it had happened in our times, what things, and how great, would those men have said! What?

illa itidem ingens pestilentia, quamdiu saeuiit, quam multos peremit! Quae cum in annum alium multo grauius tenderetur frustra praesente Aesculapio, aditum est ad libros Sibyllinos. In quo genere oraculorum, sicut Cicero in libris de diuinatione commemorat, magis interpretibus ut possunt seu uolunt dubia coniectantibus credi solet.

that likewise enormous pestilence—how many it slew while it raged! And when it was being prolonged into another year much more grievously, with Aesculapius present to no avail, recourse was had to the Sibylline Books. In which kind of oracles, as Cicero records in the books On Divination, it is rather the custom to credit interpreters, conjecturing ambiguities as they can or as they wish.

Tunc ergo dictum est eam esse causam pestilentiae, quod plurimas aedes sacras multi occupatas priuatim tenerent: sic interim a magno imperitiae uel desidiae crimine Aesculapius liberatus est. Vnde autem a multis aedes illae fuerant occupatae nemine prohibente, nisi quia tantae numinum turbae diu frustra fuerat supplicatum, atque ita paulatim loca deserebantur a cultoribus, ut tamquam uacua sine ullius offensione possent humanis saltem usibus uindicari? Namque tunc uelut ad sedandam pestilentiam dilegenter repetita atque reparata nisi postea eodem modo neglecta atque usurpata latitarent, non utique magnae peritiae Varronis tribueretur, quod scribens de aedibus sacris tam multa ignorata commemorat.

Then therefore it was said that this was the cause of the pestilence: that many held in private possession very many sacred edifices that had been seized; thus meanwhile Aesculapius was acquitted of a great charge of inexperience or sloth. But whence had those shrines been occupied by many, with no one forbidding, except because to so great a throng of divinities supplication had long been made in vain, and so the places were gradually deserted by their worshippers, so that, as though vacant, without anyone’s offense they could be claimed at least for human uses? For if those, then, as if to allay the pestilence, diligently re-sought and repaired, had not afterward in the same way lain hidden as neglected and usurped, it would not, surely, be attributed to the great expertise of Varro that, writing about sacred edifices, he records so many things unknown.

Sed tunc interim elegans non pestilentiae depulsio, sed deorum excusatio procurata est.

But then, in the meantime, not a depulsion of the pestilence, but an elegant excuse of the gods was procured.

[XVIII] Iam uero Punicis bellis, cum inter utrumque imperium uictoria diu anceps atque incerta penderet populique duo praeualidi impetus in alterutrum fortissimos et opulentissimos agerent, quot minutiora regna contrita sunt! quae urbes amplae nobilesque deletae, quot adflictae, quot perditae ciuitates! Quam longe lateque tot regiones terraeque uastate sunt!

[18] Now indeed, in the Punic wars, when between the two empires victory for a long time hung two-headed and uncertain, and the two very prevalent peoples were driving against each other assaults most forceful and most opulent, how many smaller kingdoms were crushed! what ample and noble cities were destroyed, how many were battered, how many states were lost! How far and wide so many regions and lands were devastated!

Quotiens uicti hinc atque inde uictores! Quid hominum concumptum est uel pugnantium militum uel ab armis uacantium populorum! Quanta uis nauium marinis etiam proeliis oppressa et diuersarum tempestatum uarietate submersa est!

How often have victors, on this side and on that, been vanquished! How many human beings have been consumed, whether of soldiers fighting or of peoples free from arms! What a multitude of ships has been crushed in maritime battles and sunk by the variety of diverse storms!

Si enarrare uel commemorare conemur, nihil aliud quam scriptores etiam nos erimus historiae. Tunc magno metu perturbata Romana ciuitas ad remedia uana et redenda currebat. Instaurati sunt ex auctoritate librorum Sibyllinorum ludi saeculares, quorum celebritas inter centum annos fuerat instituta felicioribusque temporibus memoria neglegente perierat.

If we should attempt to expound or to commemorate, we would be nothing else than writers of history ourselves. Then the Roman commonwealth, perturbed by great fear, ran to vain and laughable remedies. The Secular Games were restored by the authority of the Sibylline Books, whose celebration had been instituted at intervals of 100 years and had perished, in more fortunate times, through neglectful memory.

Renouarunt etiam pontifices ludos sacros inferis et ipsos abolitos annis retrorsum melioribus. Nimirum enim, quando renouati sunt, tanta copia morientium ditatos inferos etiam ludere delectabat, cum profecto miseri homines ipsa rabida bella et cruentas animositates funereasque hinc atque inde uictorias magnos agerent ludos daemonum et opimas epulas inferorum. Nihil sane miserabilius primo Punico bello accidit, quam quod ita Romani uicti sunt, ut etiam Regulus ille caperetur, cuius in primo et in altero libro mentionem fecimus, uir plane magnus et uictor antea domitorque Poenorum, qui etiam ipsum primum bellum Punicum confecisset, nisi auiditate nimia laudis et gloriae duriores condiciones, quam ferre possent, fessis Carthaginiensibus imperasset.

They also renewed the sacred games for the infernal gods, and those very games that had been abolished, in better years long ago. Indeed, when they were renewed, the underworld, enriched by so great a multitude of the dying, even took delight in playing; while, to be sure, wretched men by the very rabid wars and blood‑stained animosities and funereal victories here and there were staging great games of the demons and opulent banquets of the infernal powers. Nothing, to be sure, more pitiable happened in the First Punic War than that the Romans were so defeated that even that Regulus was captured—of whom we made mention in the first and in the second book—a man plainly great and previously a victor and tamer of the Punics, who would even have brought the First Punic War itself to completion, had he not, from excessive avidity of praise and glory, imposed upon the wearied Carthaginians terms harsher than they could bear.

Illius uiri et captiuitas inopinatissima et seruitus indignissima, et iuratio fidelissima et mors crudelissima si deos illos non cogit erubescere, uerum est quod aerii sunt et non habetn sanguinem.

Both that man's most unforeseen captivity and most unworthy servitude, and his most faithful oath and most cruel death, if they do not compel those gods to blush, it is true that they are aerial and do not have blood.

Nec mala illo tempore grauissima intra moenia defuerunt. Nam exundante nimis ultra morem fluuio Tiberino paene omnia urbis plana subuersa sunt, aliis impetu quasi torrentis inpulsis, aliis uelut stagno diuturno madefactis atque sublapsis. Istam deinde pestem ignis perniciosior subsecutus est, qui correptis circa forum quibusque celsioribus etiam templo Vestae suo familiarissimo non pepercit, ubi ei ueluti uitam perpetuam diligentissima substitutione lignorum non tam honoratae quam damnatae uirgines donare consuerant.

Nor were the most grievous ills at that time lacking within the walls. For with the Tiber river overflowing excessively beyond the custom, almost all the level quarters of the city were overthrown, some driven by a force as if of a torrent, others, as though by a long-lasting pool, soaked and having subsided. Then a more pernicious pest followed upon that—fire—which, having seized the places around the forum and whatever was loftier, spared not even the temple of Vesta, most familiar to it, where to it, as it were, perpetual life by the most diligent replacement of logs the virgins—not so much honored as condemned—were accustomed to bestow.

Tunc uero illic ignis non tantum uiuebat; sed etiam saeuiebat. Cuius impetu exterritae uirgines sacra illa fatalia, quae iam tres, in quibus fuerant, presserant ciuitates, cum ab illo incendio liberare non possent, Metullus pontifex suae quodam modo salutis oblitus inruens ea semiustus abripuit. Neque enim uel ipsum ignis agnouit, aut uero erat ibi numen, quod non etiam, si fuisset, fugisset.

Then indeed there the fire not only lived; it even raged. Terrified by its onrush, the virgins, since they could not free those fatal sacra from that conflagration—those which had already oppressed three cities wherein they had been—Metellus the pontiff, in a certain manner forgetful of his own safety, rushing in, half-burned, snatched them away. For neither did the fire even acknowledge him, nor indeed was there any numen there that would not also, had it existed, have fled.

Homo igitur potius sacris Vestae quam illa homini prodesse potuerunt. Si autem a se ipsis ignem non repellebant, ciuitatem, cuius salutem tueri putabantur, quid contra illas aquas flammasque poterant adiuuare? sicut etiam res ipsa nihil ea prorsus potuisse patefecit.

Accordingly, a man could help the sacred rites of Vesta rather than those being able to help the man. But if they did not repel fire from themselves, how could they aid the city, whose safety they were thought to guard, against those waters and flames? just as indeed the fact itself made manifest that they could do absolutely nothing.

Haec istis nequaquam obicerentur a nobis, si illa sacra dicerent non tuendis his bonis temporalibus instituta, sed significandis aeternis, et ideo, cum ea, quod corporalia uisibiliaque essent, perire contingeret, nihil his rebus minui, propter quas fuerant instituta, et posse ad eosdem usus denuo reparari. Nunc uero caecitae mirabili eis sacris, quae perire possent, fieri potuisse existimant, ut salus terrena et temporalis felicitas ciuitatis perire non posset. Proinde cum illis etiam manentibus sacris uel salutis contritio uel infelicitas inruisse monstratur, mutare sententiam, quam defendere nequeunt, erubescunt.

These things would by no means be charged by us against them, if they were to say that those sacred rites were instituted not for guarding these temporal goods, but for signifying the eternal; and that therefore, when it befell that they perished, because they were corporeal and visible, nothing was diminished of the matters on account of which they had been instituted, and that they could be restored anew for the same uses. But now, in marvelous blindness, they suppose that by those sacred rites, which could perish, it could be brought about that the earthly welfare and temporal felicity of the city could not perish. Accordingly, since it is shown that, even with those rites remaining, either the ruin of welfare or misfortune has rushed in, they blush to change the opinion which they cannot defend.

[XIX] Secundo autem Punico bello nimis longum est commemorare clades duorum populorum tam longe secum lateque pugnantium, ita ut his quoque fatentibus, qui non tam narrare bella Romana quam Romanum imperium laudare instituerunt, similior uicto fuerit ille qui uicit. Hannibale quippe ab Hispania surgente et Pyrenaeis montibus superatis, Gallia transcursa Alpibusque disruptis, tam longo circuitu auctis uiribus cuncta uastando aut subigendo torrentis modo Italiae faucibus inruente quam cruenta proelia gesta sunt, quotiens Romani superati! quam multa ad hostem oppida defecerunt, quam multa capta et oppressa!

[19] However, in the Second Punic War it is too long to recount the disasters of the two peoples warring with each other so far and so widely, to such a degree that, even by the admission of those who undertook not so much to narrate Roman wars as to laud the Roman imperium, the victor was more like the vanquished. For Hannibal, rising from Spain and the Pyrenean mountains overcome, Gaul traversed and the Alps broken through, by so long a circuit with his forces increased, laying waste or subduing everything, rushing like a torrent into the gullet of Italy—how many bloody battles were fought, how often were the Romans overcome! how many towns defected to the enemy, how many were taken and oppressed!

quam dirae pugnae et totiens Hannibali Romana clade gloriosae! De Cannensi autem mirabiliter horrendo malo quid dicam, ubi Hannibal, cum esset crudelissimus, tamen tanta inimicorum atrocissimorum caede satiatus parci iussisse perhibetur? Vnde tres modios anulorum aureorum Carthaginem misit, quo intellegerunt tantam in illo proelio dignitatem cecidisse Romanam, ut facilius eam caperet mensura quam numerus, atque hinc strages turbae ceterae tanto utique numerosioris, quanto infirmioris, quae sine anulis iacebat, conicienda potius quam nuntianda putaretur.

how dire the battles and so often glorious to Hannibal by Roman slaughter! But of the wondrously horrendous evil of Cannae what shall I say, where Hannibal, though he was most cruel, yet, sated by so great a slaughter of his most atrocious enemies, is reported to have ordered that there be sparing? Whence he sent three modii of golden rings to Carthage, whereby they understood that so great Roman dignity had fallen in that battle that a measure would more easily take it than a number; and from this the massacre of the rest of the crowd—so much indeed more numerous as it was weaker—which lay without rings, was thought rather to be conjectured than announced.

Denique tanta militum inopia secuta est, ut Romani reos facinorum proposita inpunitate colligerent, seruitia libertate donarent atque illis pudendus non tam suppleretur quam institueretur exercitus. Seruis itaque, immo, ne faciamus iniuriam, iam libertis, pro Romana re publica pugnaturis arma defuerunt. Detracta sunt templis, tamquam Romani diis suis dicerent: Ponite quae tam diu inaniter habuistis, ne forte aliquid utile inde facere possint nostra mancipia, unde nostra numina facere non potuistis.

Finally, such a dearth of soldiers ensued, that the Romans gathered the accused of crimes by proposing impunity, granted liberty to their slave-class, and for them a shameful army was not so much filled up as instituted. To the slaves, or rather—lest we do them an injury—now freedmen, who were going to fight for the Roman commonwealth, arms were lacking. They were taken down from the temples, as though the Romans were saying to their gods: Put down what you have so long held in vain, lest perchance our slaves be able to make something useful from it, from which you were not able to make our divinities.

Tunc etiam stipendiis sufficiendis cum defecisset aerarium, in usus publicos opes uenere priuatae, adeo unoquoque id quod habuit conferente, ut praeter singulos anulos singulasque bullas, miserabilia dignitatis insignia, nihil sibi auri senatus ipse, quanto magis ceteri ordines tribusque relinquerent. Quis ferret istos, si nostris temporibus ad hanc inopiam cogerentur, cum eos modo uix feramus, quando pro superflua uoluptate plura donantur histrionibus, quam tunc legionibus pro extrema salute conlata sunt?

Then also, when the treasury had failed for making up the stipends, private resources came into public uses, to such a degree, with each and every person contributing what he had, that—besides each his ring and each his bulla, pitiable insignia of dignity—the senate itself left to itself nothing of gold; how much more, then, did the other orders and the tribes leave nothing. Who would endure such men, if in our times they were forced to this indigence, since we scarcely endure them now, when for superfluous pleasure more is bestowed upon actors than was then contributed to the legions for utmost salvation?

[XX] Sed in his omnibus belli Punici secundi malis nihil miserabilius ac miserabili querella dignius quam exitium Saguntinorum fuit. Haec quippe Hispaniae ciuitas amicissima populi Romani, dum eidem populo fidem seruat, euersa est. Hinc enim Hannibal fracto foedere Romanorum causas quaesiuit, quibus eos inritaret ad bellum.

[20] But in all these evils of the Second Punic War nothing was more miserable and more worthy of a miserable lament than the destruction of the Saguntines. For this city of Spain, most friendly to the Roman people, while it kept faith with that same people, was overthrown. From this, indeed, Hannibal, the treaty with the Romans broken, sought causes by which he might irritate them to war.

Saguntum ergo ferociter obsidebat; quod ubi Romae auditum est, missi legati ad Hannibalem, ut ab eius obsidione discederet. Contempti Carthaginem pergunt querimoniamque deponunt foederis rupti infectoque negotio Romam redeunt. Dum hae morae aguntur, misera illa ciuitas opulentissima, suae rei publicae Romanaeque carissima, octauo uel nono a Poenis mense deleta est.

Therefore he was besieging Saguntum ferociously; and when this was heard at Rome, legates were sent to Hannibal, that he should withdraw from its siege. Scorned, they proceed to Carthage and lodge a querimony about the broken foedus, and, the business left unfinished, return to Rome. While these delays are transacted, that most wretched yet most opulent city, dearest to its own republic and to the Roman republic, was destroyed by the Carthaginians in the eighth or ninth month.

Cuius interitum legere, quanto magis scribere, horroris est. Breuiter tamen eum commemorabo; ad rem quippe quae agitur multum pertinet. Primo fame contabuit; nam etiam suorum cadaueribus a nonnullis pasta perhibetur.

The destruction of which, to read — and how much more to write — is a horror. Nevertheless I will briefly commemorate it; for indeed it pertains much to the matter that is being conducted. At first it wasted away with famine; for it is reported to have been fed by some even on the cadavers of its own.

Deinde omnium fessa rerum, ne saltem captiua in manus Hannibalis perueniret, ingentem rogum publice struxit, in quem ardentem ferro etiam trucidatos omnes se suosque miserunt. Hic aliquid agerent dii helluones atque nebulones, sacrificiorum adipibus inhiantes et fallacium diuinationum caligine decipientes; hic aliquid agerent, ciuitati populi Romani amicissimae subuenirent, fidei conseruatione pereuntem perire non sinerent. Ipsi utique medii praefuerunt, cum Romanae rei publicae interiecto foedere copulata est.

Then, with all things wearied out, lest at least she should come captive into the hands of Hannibal, she publicly built a huge pyre, into which, as it was burning, with iron they sent all—slaughtered—both themselves and their own. Here let them do something, those gods, gluttons and good-for-nothings, gaping after the fats of sacrifices and deceiving by the murk of fallacious divinations; here let them do something, let them come to the aid of the state most friendly to the Roman people, let them not allow to perish one perishing for the preservation of good faith. They themselves, to be sure, presided as mediators, when, a treaty having been interposed, she was coupled to the Roman Republic.

Custodiens itaque fideliter, quod ipsis praesidibus placito iunxerat, fide uinxerat, iuratione constrinxerat, a perfido obsessa oppressa consumpta est. Si ipsi dii tempestate atque fulminibus Hannibalem postea Romanis proximum moenibus terruerunt longeque miserunt: tunc primum tale aliquid facerent. Audeo quippe dicere honestius illos pro amicis Romanorum ideo periclitantibus, ne Romanis frangerent fidem, et nullam opem tunc habentibus quam pro ipsis Romanis, qui pro se pugnabant atque aduersus Hannibalem opulenti erant, potuisse tempestate saeuire.

Therefore, faithfully keeping what she had joined by pact with those very governors, had bound by faith, had constrained by oath, she was besieged, oppressed, and consumed by the perfidious one. If the gods themselves later by tempest and by thunderbolts frightened Hannibal, when he was next to the Roman walls, and sent him far away: then, for the first time, that was when they should have done something of that sort. For I dare to say that it would have been more honest for them to have been able to rage with a tempest on behalf of the friends of the Romans—who were therefore running peril lest they break faith with the Romans, and then had no help—than on behalf of the Romans themselves, who were fighting for themselves and were opulent against Hannibal.

Si ergo tutores essent Romanae felicitatis et gloriae, tam graue ab ea crimen Saguntinae calamitatis auerterent; nunc uero quam stulte creditur, diis illis defensoribus Romam uictore Hannibale non perisse, qui Saguntinae urbi non potuerunt, ne pro eius periret amicitia, subuenire! Si Saguntinorum Christianus populus esset et huius modi aliquid pro fide euangelica pateretur, quamquam se ipse nec ferro nec ignibus corrupisset sed tamen si pro fide euangelica excidium pateretur: ea spe pateretur, qua in Christum crediderat, non mercede breuissimi temporis, sed aeternitatis interminae. Pro istis autem diis, qui propterea coli perhibentur, propterea colendi requiruntur, ut harum labentium atque transeuntium rerum felicitas tuta sit, quid nobis defensores et excusatores eorum de Saguntinis pereuntibus respondebunt, nisi quod de illo Regulo extincto?

If therefore they were the tutors of Roman felicity and glory, they would have averted from it so grave a charge of the Saguntine calamity; but now how foolishly it is believed that, with those gods as defenders, Rome did not perish though Hannibal was victor—those who were not able to succor the city of Saguntum, to the end that its friendship might not perish! If the people of the Saguntines were Christian and suffered something of this kind for the evangelical faith, although it would not itself have corrupted itself either by iron or by fires, yet if for the evangelical faith it were to suffer destruction: it would suffer by that hope wherein it had believed in Christ, not for the wage of a most brief time, but of interminable eternity. But for those gods, who are on that account said to be worshiped, on that account required to be worshiped, that the felicity of these slipping and transient things may be safe, what will their defenders and excusers answer us concerning the perishing Saguntines, except what they answer about that Regulus who was extinguished?

Hoc quippe interest, quod ille unus homo, haec tota ciuitas; utriusque tamen interitus causa conseruatio fidei fuit. Propter hanc enim ad hostes et redire ille uoluit, et noluit ista transire. Conseruata ergo prouocat deorum iram fides?

This indeed is the difference: that he was one man, this a whole city; yet for both the cause of destruction was the conservation of faith. For on account of this he was willing to return to the enemies, and that one was unwilling to overstep it. Does faith, then, when conserved, provoke the gods’ wrath?

an possunt et diis propitiis perire non solum quique homines, uerum etiam integrae ciuitates? Vtrum uolunt, eligant. Si enim fidei seruatae irascuntur illi dii, quaerant perfidos, a quibus colantur; si autem etiam illis propitiis multis grauibusque cruciatibus adflicti interire homines ciuitatesque possunt, nullo fructu felicitatis huius coluntur.

Or is it possible that, even with the gods propitious, not only individual men, but even entire cities, perish? Let them choose whichever they wish. For if those gods are angered at faith preserved, let them seek the perfidious by whom they may be worshiped; but if even with them propitious men and cities, afflicted by many and grave torments, can perish, they are worshiped with no fruit of this felicity.

Desinant igitur suscensere, qui sacris deorum suorum perditis se infelices esse factos putant. Possent enim illis non solum manentibus, uerum etiam fauentibus non sicut modo de miseria murmurare, sed sicut tunc Regulus et Saguntini excruciati horribiliter etiam penitus interire.

Let them, therefore, cease to be incensed, who think themselves made unhappy by the destruction of the sacred rites of their gods. For they could, with those not only remaining but even favoring, not as now murmur about misery, but, as then, like Regulus and the Saguntines, horribly excruciated, even utterly perish.

[XXI] Porro inter secundum et postremum bellum Carthaginiense, quando Sallustius optimis moribus et maxima concordia dixit egisse Romanos (multa enim praetereo suscepti operis modum cogitans), eodem ipso ergo tempore morum optimorum maximaeque concordiae Scipio ille Romae Italiaeque liberator eiusdemque belli Punici secundi tam horrendi, tam exitiosi, tam periculosi praeclarus mirabilisque confector, uictor Hannibalis domitorque Carthaginis, cuius ab adulescentia uita describitur diis dedita templisque ntrita, inimicorum accusationibus cessit carensque patria, quam sua uirtute saluam et liberam reddidit, in oppido Linternensi egit reliquam compleuitque uitam, post insignem suum triumphum nullo illius urbis captus desiderio, ita ut iussisse perhebeatur, ne saltem mortuo in ingrata patria funus fieret. Deinde tunc primum per Gneum Manlium proconsulem de Gallograecis triumphantem Asiatica luxuria Romam omni hoste peior inrepsit. Tunc enim primum lecti aerati et pretiosa stragula uisa perhibentur; tunc inductae in conuiuia psaltriae et alia licentiosa nequitia.

[21] Moreover, between the second and the last Carthaginian war, when Sallust said that the Romans conducted themselves with the best morals and the greatest concord (for I pass over many things, considering the scope of the undertaken work), at that very time of the best morals and greatest concord, that Scipio, the liberator of Rome and of Italy and the illustrious and marvelous finisher of that same Second Punic war, so horrendous, so ruinous, so perilous, the victor of Hannibal and the tamer of Carthage, whose life from youth is described as devoted to the gods and nourished in temples, yielded to the accusations of enemies and, lacking the fatherland which by his own virtue he had restored safe and free, spent and completed the rest of his life in the town of Liternum, after his splendid triumph, seized by no longing for that city, so that he is reported to have ordered that not even when dead should a funeral be held in his ungrateful fatherland. Then for the first time, through Gnaeus Manlius the proconsul, triumphing over the Gallo-Greeks, Asiatic luxury, worse than any enemy, crept into Rome. For then first bronze couches and precious coverlets are said to have been seen; then singing-girls (psaltriae) were introduced into banquets, and other licentious depravity.

Sed nunc de his malis, quae intolerabiliter homines patiuntur, non de his, quae libenter faciunt, dicere institui. Vnde illud magis, quod de Scipione commemoraui, quod cedens inimicis extra patriam, quam liberauit, mortuus est, ad praesentem pertinet disputationem, quod ei Romana numina, a quorum templis auertit Hannibalem, non reddiderunt uicem, quae propter istam tantummodo coluntur felicitatem. Sed quia Sallustius eo tempore ibi dixit mores optimos fuisse, propterea hoc de Asiana luxuria commemorandum putaui, ut intellegatur etiam illud a Sallustio in comparationem aliorum temporum dictum, quibus temporibus peiores utique in grauissimis discordiis mores fuerunt.

But now of those evils which humans suffer intolerably, not of those which they willingly do, I have undertaken to speak. Whence that point especially, which I have recalled about Scipio—that, yielding to enemies, outside the fatherland which he liberated, he died—pertains to the present disputation, namely that the Roman numina, from whose temples he turned Hannibal away, did not return the favor, though they are worshiped for that felicity only. But since Sallust said that at that time there the morals were best, for that reason I thought this about Asiatic luxury should be commemorated, so that it may be understood that that statement too by Sallust was said in comparison with other times, in which times the morals were assuredly worse amid the most grievous discords.

Nam tunc, id est inter secundum et postremum bellum Carthaginiense, lata est etiam lex illa Voconia, ne quis heredem feminam faceret, nec unicam filiam. Qua lege quid iniquius dici aut cogitari possit, ignoro. Verum tamen toto illo interuallo duorum bellorum Punicorum tolerabilior infelicitas fuit.

For then, that is, between the second and the last Carthaginian war, that Voconian law was also passed, that no one should make a woman heir, not even an only daughter. Than which law what more iniquitous could be said or conceived, I do not know. Nevertheless, throughout that whole interval of the two Punic wars, the infelicity was more tolerable.

Bellis tantummodo foris conterebatur exercitus, sed uictoriis consolabatur; domi autem nullae, sicut alias, discordiae saeuiebant. Sed ultimo bello Punico uno impetu alterius Scipionis, qui ob hoc etiam ipse Africani cognomen inuenit, aemula imperii Romani ab stirpe deleta est, ac deinde tantis malorum aggeribus oppressa Romana res publica, ut prosperitate ac securitate rerum, unde nimium corruptis moribus mala illa congesta sunt, plus nocuisse monstretur tam cito euersa, quam prius nocuerunt tam diu aduersa carthago. Hoc toto tempore usque ad Caesarem Augustum, qui uidetur non adhuc uel ipsorum opinione gloriosam, sed contentiosaet exitiosam et plane iam eneruem ac languidam libertatem omni modo extorsisse Romanis et ad regale arbitrium cuncta reuocasse et quasi morbida uetustate conlapsam ueluti instaurasse ac renouasse rem publicam; toto ergo isto tempore omitto ex aliis atque aliis causis etiam atque etiam bellicas clades et Numantinum foedus horrenda ignominia maculorsum; uolauerant enim pulli de cauea et Mancino consuli, ut aiunt, augurium malum fecerant; quasi per tot annos, quibus illa exigua ciuitas Romanum circum sessa exercitum adflixerat ipsique Romanae rei publicae terrori esse iam coeperat, alii contra eam alio augurio processerunt.

The army was worn down only by wars abroad, but was consoled by victories; at home, however, no dissensions raged, as at other times. But in the last Punic war, by a single onslaught of the other Scipio, who also on this account himself found the cognomen Africanus, the rival of the Roman imperium was destroyed from the root; and thereafter the Roman res publica was pressed down by such embankments of evils that the prosperity and security of affairs, from which those evils were heaped up because morals were excessively corrupted, is shown to have harmed more—being overthrown so quickly—than long-adverse Carthage had previously harmed for so long. Throughout this whole time up to Caesar Augustus, who seems to have wrested from the Romans by every means a freedom not yet, even in their own opinion, glorious, but contentious and ruinous and plainly now enervated and languid, and to have called everything back to a regal arbitrium, and, as it were, to have restored and renewed the res publica, collapsed by a morbid old age; therefore in this whole period I pass over, from one cause and another, again and again, the warlike disasters and the Numantine treaty stained with horrendous ignominy; for the chicks had flown from the cage and, as they say, had made a bad augury for the consul Mancinus; as if, through so many years during which that tiny city had harassed the Roman army besieged around and had already begun to be a terror to the Roman res publica itself, others went out against it under some other augury.

[XXII] Sed haec, inquam, omitto, quamuis illud nequaquam tacuerim, quod Mithridates rex Asiae ubique in Asia peregrinantes ciues Romanos atque innumerabili copia suis negotiis intentos uno die occidi iussit; et factum est. Quam illa miserabilis rerum facies erat, subito quemque, ubicumque fuisset inuentus, in agro in uia in oppido, in domo in uico in foro, in templo in lecto in conuiuio inopinate atque impie fuisse trucidatum! Quis gemitus morientium, quae lacrimae spectantium, fortasse etiam ferientium fuerunt!

[22] But these things, I say, I omit, although I have by no means kept silence about this: that Mithridates, king of Asia, everywhere in Asia ordered Roman citizens peregrinating and, in innumerable multitude, intent on their own business, to be killed on a single day; and it was done. How pitiable was that scene of affairs, that suddenly each, wherever he had been found, in the field on the road in the town, in the house in the village in the forum, in the temple in bed at a banquet, unexpectedly and impiously was butchered! What groans of the dying, what tears of the spectators, perhaps even of those striking, there were!

Quam dura necessitas hospitum non solum uidendi nefarias illas caedes domi suae, uerum, etiam perpetrandi, ab illa blanda comitate humanitatis repente mutatis uultibus ad hostile negotium in pace peragendum, mutuis dicam omnino uulneribus, cum percussus in corpore et percussor in animo feriretur! Num et isti omnes auguria contempserant? Num deos et domesticos et publicos, cum de sedibus suis ad illam inremeabilem peregrinationem profecti sunt, quos consulerent, non habebant?

How hard a necessity for hosts, not only to see those nefarious slaughterings in their own house, but even to perpetrate them, from that winsome comity of humanity, with faces suddenly changed, to a hostile business to be transacted in peace, with—shall I say—utterly mutual wounds, since the one smitten in body and the smiter in mind was being struck! Did even those all contemn auguries? Had they not gods, both domestic and public, whom they might consult, when from their seats they set out to that unreturnable peregrination?

Hoc si ita est, non habent cur isti in hac causa de nostris temporibus conquerantur; olim Romani haec uana contemnunt. Si autem consuluerunt, respondeatur, quid ista profuerunt, quando per humanas dumtaxat leges nemine prohibente licuerunt.

If this is thus, they have no cause why those persons should complain in this case about our times; long ago the Romans contemned these vain things. But if they consulted, let it be answered what these things profited, when by human laws only, with no one forbidding, they were permitted.

[XXIII] Sed iam illa mala breuiter, quantum possumus, commemoremus, quae quanto interiora, tanto miseriora exstiterunt: discordiae ciuiles uel potius inciuiles, nec iam seditiones, sed etiam ipsa bella urbana, ubi tantus sanguis effusus est, ubi partium studia non contionum dissensionibus uariisque uocibus in alterutrum, sed plane iam ferro armisque saeuiebant; bella socialia, bella seruilia, bella ciuilia quantum Romanum cruorrem fuderunt, quantam Italiae uastationem desertionemque fecerunt! Namque antequam se aduersus Romam sociale Latium commoueret, cuncta animalia humanis usibus subdita, canes equi, asini boues, et quaeque alia pecora sub hominum dominio fuerunt, subito efferata et domesticae lenitatis oblita relictis tectis libera uagabantur et omnem non solum aliorum, uerum etiam dominorum auersabantur accessum, non sine exitio uel periculo audentis, si quis de proximo urgeret. Quanti mali signum fuit, si hoc signum fuit, quod tantum malum fuit, si etiam signum fuit!

[23] But now let us briefly, as far as we can, commemorate those evils which, the more interior they were, the more miserable they proved: civil—or rather uncivil—discords, and no longer seditions, but even the very urban wars, where so great blood was poured out, where the zeal of parties raged not with dissensions of assemblies and with various voices against one another, but plainly now with iron and arms; the social wars, the servile wars, the civil wars—how much Roman blood they poured forth, how great a devastation and desertion of Italy they wrought! For before allied Latium stirred itself against Rome, all the animals subjected to human uses—dogs, horses, asses, oxen, and whatever other cattle were under the dominion of men—suddenly, having grown wild and forgetful of domestic mildness, with their dwellings abandoned, were wandering free and shunned every approach not only of others but even of their masters, not without the destruction or danger of the one daring, if anyone pressed them from close at hand. Of how great an evil it was a sign, if this was a sign, which was itself so great an evil, if indeed it was also a sign!

Hoc si nostris temporibus accidisset, rabidiores istos quam sua illi animalia pateremur.

If this had happened in our times, we would suffer those men more rabid than their own animals.

[XXIV] Initium autem ciuilium malorum fuit seditiones Gracchorum agrariis legibus excitatae. Volebant enim agros populo diuidere, quos nobilitas perperam possidebat. Sed iam uetustam iniquitatem audere conuellere periculosissimum, immo uero, ut res ipsa docuit, perniciosissimum fuit.

[24] But the beginning of the civil evils was the seditions of the Gracchi, stirred up by agrarian laws. For they wished to divide the lands to the people, which the nobility was improperly possessing. But to dare to uproot a long-standing iniquity was most perilous—nay indeed, as the thing itself taught, most pernicious.

Quae funera facta sunt, cum prior Gracchus occisus est! quae etiam, cum alius frater eius non longo interposito tempore? Neque enim legibus et ordine potestatum, sed turbis armorumque conflictibus nobiles ignobilesque necabantur.

What funerals there were, when the earlier Gracchus was slain! what, too, when his other brother, with no long interval interposed? For it was not by laws and the order of the magistracies, but by mobs and by conflicts of arms, that both nobles and ignobles were being killed.

Post Gracchi alterius interfectionem Lucius Opimius consul, qui aduersus eum intra Vrbem arma commouerat eoque cum sociis oppresso et extincto ingentem ciuium stragem fecerat, cum quaestionem haberet iam iudiciaria inquisitione ceteros persequens, tria milia hominum occidisse perhebetur. Ex quo intellegi potest, quantam multitudinem mortium habere potuerit turbidus conflictus armorum, quando tantam habuit iudiciorum uelut examinata cognitio. Percussor Gracchi ipsius caput, quantum graue erat, tanto auri pondere consuli uendidit; haec enim pactio caedem praecesserat.

After the killing of the other Gracchus, Lucius Opimius, consul—who had stirred up arms against him within the City and, with him and his associates suppressed and extinguished, had made a huge slaughter of citizens—when he was holding a quaestio, pursuing the rest by judicial inquisition, is reported to have killed three thousand men. From this it can be understood what a multitude of deaths a turbulent clash of arms could have, since an as-it-were sifted cognition of trials had so great a (toll). The assassin of Gracchus himself sold the head to the consul for a weight of gold equal to how heavy it was; for this bargain had preceded the slaying.

In qua etiam occisus est cum liberis Marcus Fuluius consularis.

In which also Marcus Fulvius, a consular, was killed with his children.

[XXV] Eleganti sane senatus consulto eo ipso loco, ubi funereus tumultus ille commissus est, ubi tot ciues ordinis cuiusque ceciderunt, aedes Concordiae facta est, ut Gracchorum poenae testis contionantium oculos feriret memoriamque compungeret. Sed hoc quid aliud fuit quam inrisio deorum, illi deae templum construere, quae si esset in ciuitate, non tantis dissensionibus dilacerata conrueret? Nisi forte sceleris huius rea Concordia, quia deseruerat animos ciuium, meruit in illa aede tamquam in carcere includi.

[25] By a truly elegant senatorial decree, in that very place where that funereal tumult was engaged, where so many citizens of every order fell, a temple of Concord was made, so that, as a witness of the punishments of the Gracchi, it might strike the eyes of those assembling and prick their memory. But what else was this than a derision of the gods, to build a temple to that goddess who, if she were in the commonwealth, the state would not collapse, torn to pieces by such great dissensions? Unless perhaps Concord, arraigned for this crime because she had deserted the minds of the citizens, deserved to be shut up in that shrine as though in a prison.

Cur enim, si rebus gestis congruere uoluerunt, non ibi potius aedem Discordiae fabricarunt? An ulla ratio redditur, cur Concordia dea sit, et Discordia dea non sit, ut secundum Labeonis distinctionem bona sit ista, illa uero mala? Nec ipse aliud secutus uidetur quam quod aduertit Romae etiam Febri, sicut Saluti, templum constitutum.

For why, if they wished to be congruent with the deeds done, did they not rather fabricate there a temple of Discord? Or is any reason rendered why Concord should be a goddess and Discord should not be a goddess, so that, according to Labeo’s distinction, this one be good, but that one indeed bad? Nor does he himself seem to have followed anything else than that he noticed that at Rome even Fever, just as Health, had a temple established.

Eo modo igitur non solum Concordiae, uerum etiam Discordiae constitui debuit. Periculose itque Romani tam mala dea irata uiuere uoluerunt nec Troianum excidium recoluerunt originem ab eius offensione sumpsisse. Ipsa quippe quia inter deos non fuerat inuitata, trium dearum litem aurei mali suppositione commenta est; unde rixa numinum et Venus uictrix, et rapta Helena et Troia deleta.

Thus, in that way, not only to Concord but even to Discord a temple ought to have been established. Perilously, then, the Romans wished to live with so evil a goddess angered, nor did they recollect that the Trojan destruction had taken its origin from her offense. For she herself, because she had not been invited among the gods, contrived the quarrel of three goddesses by the supposition (placing) of a golden apple; whence a brawl of the divinities and Venus the victress, and Helen carried off and Troy destroyed.

Quapropter, si forte indignata, quod inter deos in Vrbe nullum templum habere meruit, ideo iam turbabat tantis tumultibus ciuitatem, quanto atrocius potuit inritari, cum in loco illius caedis, hoc est in loco sui operis, aduersariae suae constitutam aedem uideret! Haec uana ridentibus nobis illi docti sapientesque stomachantur, et tamen numinum bonorum malorumque cultores de hac quaestione Concordiae Discordiaque non exeunt, siue praetermiserint harum dearum cultum eisque Febrem Bellonamque praetulerint, quibus antiqua fana fecerunt, siue et istas coluerint, cum sic eos discedente Concordia Discordia saeuiens usque ad ciuilia bella perduxerit.

Wherefore, if perchance, indignant that among the gods in the City she had deserved to have no temple, for that reason she was now throwing the commonwealth into such great tumults, the more atrociously she could be provoked, when she saw, in the place of that slaughter— that is, in the place of her own work— a temple set up for her adversary! At these vain things, while we laugh, those learned and wise men are vexed; and yet the worshipers of good and evil divinities do not get out of this question about Concord and Discord, whether they have passed over the cult of these goddesses and preferred to them Fever and Bellona, for whom they made ancient fanes, or have even worshiped these as well, since thus, with Concord departing, raging Discord has led them on even to civil wars.

[XXVI] Praeclarum uero seditionis obstaculum aedem Concordiae, testem caedis suppliciique Gracchorum, contionantibus opponendam putarunt. Quantum ex hoc profecerint, indicant secuta peiora. Laborarunt enim deinceps contionatores non exemplum deuitare Gracchorum, sed superare propositum, Lucius Saturninus tribunus plebis et Gaius Seruilius praetor et multo post Marcus Drusus, quorum omnium seditionibus caedes primo iam tunc grauissimae, deinde socialia bella exarserunt, quibus Italia uehementer adflicta et ad uastitatem mirabilem desertionemque perducta est.

[26] They thought that the temple of Concord, a splendid obstacle to sedition, a witness of the slaughter and punishment of the Gracchi, ought to be set in opposition to those haranguing the assembly. How much they profited by this, the worse things that followed indicate. For thereafter the assembly-orators strove not to avoid the example of the Gracchi, but to surpass the purpose: Lucius Saturninus, tribune of the plebs, and Gaius Servilius, praetor, and much later Marcus Drusus; by the seditions of all of whom first even then most grievous slaughters, and then the Social Wars, flared up, whereby Italy was vehemently afflicted and was brought to a marvelous devastation and desertion.

Bellum deinde seruile successit et bella ciuilia. Quae proelia commissa sunt, quid sanguinis fusum, ut omnes fere Italae gentes, quibus Romanum maxime praepollebat imperium, tamquam saeua barbaries domarentur! Iam ex paucissimis, hoc est minus quam septuaginta, gladiatoribus quem ad modum bellum seruile contractum sit, ad quantum numerum et quam acrem ferocemque peruenerit, quos ille numerus imperatores populi Romani superauerit, quas et quo modo ciuitates regionesque, uastauerit, uix qui historiam conscripserunt satis explicare potuerunt.

Then the servile war followed, and the civil wars. What battles were engaged, how much blood was poured out, that almost all the Italian peoples, over whom the Roman imperium was most preeminent, were subdued as though by savage barbarity! Already from a very few, that is, fewer than 70, gladiators, how the servile war was raised, to what number and how keen and ferocious it came, how many generals of the Roman people that number overmatched, which cities and regions, and in what manner, it laid waste—scarcely were those who composed the history able sufficiently to set it forth.

Neque id solum fuit seruile bellum, sed et Macedoniam prouinciam prius seruitia depopulata sunt et deinde Siciliam oramque maritimam. Quanta etiam et quam horrenda commiserint primo latrocinia, deinde ualida bella piratarum, quis pro magnitudine rerum ualeat eloqui?

Nor was that the only servile war, but slave-bands also first devastated the province of Macedonia and then Sicily and the maritime coast. How great and how horrendous the latrociny at the beginning, and thereafter the mighty wars of the pirates, committed—who could, in proportion to the magnitude of the events, find words to set them forth?

[XXVII] Cum uero Marius ciuili sanguine iam cruentus multis aduersarum sibi partium peremptis uictus Vrbe profugisset, uix paululum respirante ciuitate, ut uerbis Tullianis utar, "superauit postea Cinna cum Mario. Tum uero clarissimis uiris interfectis lumina ciuitatis extincta sunt. Vltus est huius uictoriae crudelitatem postea Sulla, ne dici quidem opus est quanta deminutione ciuium et quanta calamitate rei publicae." De hac enim uindicta, quae perniciosior fuit, quam si scelera quae puniebantur inpunita relinquerentur, ait et Lucanus:

[27] But when Marius, now blood-stained with civil blood, with many of the opposing parties slain, having been defeated had fled from the City, with the state scarcely drawing even a little breath, to use Tullian words, "afterwards Cinna prevailed with Marius. Then indeed, when the most illustrious men had been slain, the lights of the commonwealth were extinguished. Sulla afterwards took vengeance for the cruelty of this victory; there is not even need to say with how great a diminution of citizens and how great a calamity of the republic." For of this vengeance, which was more pernicious than if the crimes that were being punished had been left unpunished, Lucan also says:

Excessit medicina modum nimiumque secuta est,

Medicine has exceeded the measure and has followed excess,

Qua morbi duxere manum. Periere nocentes;

Where the diseases led the hand. The guilty perished;

Sed cum iam soli possent superesse nocentes. Illo bello Mariano atque Sullano exceptis his, qui foris in acie ceciderunt, in ipsa quoque Vrbe cadaueribus uici plateae fora theatra templa completa sunt, ut difficile iudicaretur, quando uictores plus funerum ediderint, utrum prius ut uincerent, an postea quia uicissent; cum primum uictoria mariana, quando de exilio se ipse restituit, exceptis passim quaque uersum caedibus factis caput Octauii consulis poneretur in rostris, Caesares a Fimbria domibus trucidarentur suis, duo Crassi pater et filius in conspectu mutuo mactarentur, Baebius et Numitorius unco tracti sparsis uisceribus interirent, Catulus hausto ueneno se manibus inimocorum subtraheret, Merula flamen Dialis praecisis uenis Ioui etiam suo sanguine litaret. In ipsius autem Marii oculis continuo feriebantur, quibus salutantibus dexteram porrigere noluisset.

But when now only the guilty could survive. In that Marian and Sullan war, except for those who fell outside in the battle line, even in the City itself the wards, streets, squares, forums, theatres, temples were filled with cadavers, so that it was difficult to judge when the victors produced more funerals, whether earlier so that they might conquer, or afterwards because they had conquered; when first in the Marian victory, when, returning from exile, he restored himself, with slaughters perpetrated everywhere in every direction, the head of the consul Octavius was set on the Rostra, the Caesars were butchered by Fimbria in their own houses, the two Crassi, father and son, were slaughtered in each other’s sight, Baebius and Numitorius, dragged by a hook, perished with their entrails scattered, Catulus, poison having been quaffed, withdrew himself from the hands of his enemies, Merula, the flamen of Jupiter (Dialis), with his veins cut, even propitiated Jove with his own blood. Moreover, they were straightway struck down before the very eyes of Marius himself, those to whom, when greeting him, he had refused to extend his right hand.

[XXVIII] Sullana uero uictoria secuta, huius uidelicet uindex crudelitatis, post tantum sanguinem ciuium, quo fuso fuerat comparata, finito iam bello inimicitiis uiuentibus crudelius in pace grassata est. Iam etiam post Marii maioris pristinas ac recentissimas caedes additae fuerant aliae grauiores a Mario iuuene atque Carbone earundem partium Marianarum, qui Sulla imminente non solum uictoriam, uerum etiam ipsam desperantes salutem cuncta suis aliis caedibus impleuerunt. Nam praeter stragem late per diuersa diffusam obsesso etiam senatu de ipsa curia, tamquam de carcere, producebantur ad gladium.

[28] But in fact the Sullan victory that followed, manifestly the avenger of this cruelty, after so much citizens’ blood, by the shedding whereof it had been obtained, with the war now finished but enmities living on, rampaged more cruelly in peace. Already too, after the former and most recent slaughters of Marius the elder, others more grievous had been added by Marius the younger and by Carbo, of the same Marian party; who, with Sulla impending, despairing not only of victory but even of safety itself, filled everything with their own further slaughters. For besides a carnage spread far and wide through diverse places, with the senate also besieged, from the very Curia, as from a prison, they were brought forth to the sword.

Mucius Scaeuola pontifex, quoniam nihil apud Romanos templo Vestae sanctius habebatur, aram ipsam amplexus occisus est, ignemque illum, qui perpetua uirginum cura semper ardebat, suo paene sanguine extinxit. Vrbem deinde Sulla uictor intrauit, qui in uilla publica non iam bello, sed ipsa pace saeuiente septem milia deditorum (unde utique inermia) non pugnando, sed iubendo prostrauerat. In Vrbe autem tota quem uellet Sullanus quisque feriebat, unde tot funera numerari omnino non poterant, donec Sullae suggereretur sinendos esse aliquos uiuere, ut essent quibus possent imperare qui uicerant.

Mucius Scaevola, pontifex, since nothing among the Romans was held more sacred than the temple of Vesta, embracing the altar itself was slain, and he nearly extinguished with his own blood that fire which, by the perpetual care of the virgins, was always burning. Then Sulla the victor entered the City, who in the Villa Publica, with not war now but peace itself raging, had laid low seven thousand of the surrendered (and thus of course unarmed), not by fighting but by ordering. But in the whole City, every Sullan partisan struck down whom he wished, whence so many funerals could not at all be counted, until it was suggested to Sulla that some should be allowed to live, so that there might be those over whom the victors could rule.

Tunc iam cohibita quae hac atque illac passim furibunda ferebatur licentia iugulandi, tabula illa cum magna gratulatione proposita est, quae hominum ex utroque ordine splendido, equestri scilicet atque senatorio, occidendorum ac proscribendorum duo milia continebat. Contristabat numerus, sed consolabatur modus; nec quia tot cadebant tantum erat maeroris, quantum laetitiae quia ceteri non timebant. Sed in quibus dam eorum, qui mori iussi erant, etiam ipsa licet crudelis ceterorum securitas genera mortium exquisita congemuit.

Then, once the license of throat-cutting, which was being borne here and there everywhere in a furious way, had now been restrained, that tablet was posted with great congratulation, which contained two thousand men from both splendid orders, namely the equestrian and the senatorial, to be killed and proscribed. The number saddened, but the measure consoled; nor was there so much mourning because so many were falling, as there was joy because the others did not fear. But in certain of those who had been ordered to die, even the very security of the rest—albeit cruel—groaned at the carefully devised kinds of deaths.

Quendam enim sine ferro laniantium manus diripuerunt, inmanius homines hominem uiuum, quam bestiae solent discerpere cadauer abiectum. Alius oculis effossis et particulatim membris amputatis in tantis cruciatibus diu uiuere uel potius diu mori coactus est. Subhastatae sunt etiam, tamquam uillae, quaedam nobiles ciuitates; una uero, uelut unus reus duci iuberetur, sic tota iussa est trucidari.

For indeed the hands of lacerators, without steel, tore a certain man to pieces—men mangling a living man more inhumanly than beasts are accustomed to rend a cast-away corpse. Another, his eyes gouged out and his limbs amputated piecemeal, was forced amid such torments to live long—or rather to die long. Even certain noble cities were put up for auction, as though they were villas; one, indeed, just as if a single defendant had been ordered to be led off, so in its entirety was ordered to be slaughtered.

Haec facta sunt in pace post bellum, non ut acceleraretur obtinenda uictoria, sed ne contemneretur obtenta. Pax cum bello de crudelitate certauit et uicit. Illud enim prostrauit armatos, ista nudatos.

These things were done in peace after the war, not in order that the victory to be obtained might be accelerated, but lest the victory obtained be contemned. Peace contended with war in cruelty and won. For that laid low the armed, this the stripped.

Bellum rat, ut qui feriebatur, si posset, feriret; pax autem, non ut qui euaserat uiueret, sed ut moriens non repugnaret.

War ordained that he who was being struck, if he could, should strike; but peace, not that he who had escaped should live, but that, as he was dying, he should not resist.

[XXIX] Quae rabies exterarum gentium, quae saeuitia barbarorum huic de ciuibus uictoriae ciuium comparari potest? Quid Roma funestius taetrius amariusque uidit, utrum olim Gallorum et paulo ante Gothorum inruptionem an Marii et Sullae aliorumque in eorum partibus uirorum clarissimorum tamquam suorum luminum in sua membra ferocitatem? Galli quidem trucidauerunt senatum, quidquid eius in Vrbe tota praeter arcem Capitolinam, quae sola utcumque defensa est, reperire potuerunt; sed in illo colle constitutis auro uitam saltem uendiderunt, quam etsi ferro rapere non possent, possent tamen obsidione consumere: Gothi uero tam multis senatoribus pepercerunt, ut magis mirum sit quod aliquos peremerunt.

[29] What rabies of foreign gentes, what saevitia of barbarians can be compared to this victoria of citizens over citizens? What more funereal, more foul, and more bitter did Rome behold—whether once the irruption of the Gauls and, a little before, of the Goths, or the ferocity of Marius and Sulla and of others, most illustrious men in their party, as though the city’s own luminaries upon its own limbs? The Gauls indeed massacred the Senate, whatever of it they could find in the whole City except the Capitoline citadel, which alone was somehow defended; but to those stationed on that hill they at least sold life for gold, which, although they could not seize by steel, they could nonetheless consume by siege: the Goths, however, spared so many senators that it is more a marvel that they slew any.

At uero Sulla uiuo adhuc Mario ipsum Capitolium, quod a Gallis tutum fuit, ad decernendas caedes uictor insedit, et cum fuga Marius lapsus esset ferocior cruentiorque rediturus, iste in Capitolio per senatus etiam consultum multos uita rebusque priuauit: Marianis autem partibus Sulla absente quid sanctum cui parcerent fuit, quando Mucio ciui senatori pontifici aram ipsam, ubi erant ut aiunt fata Romana, miseris ambienti amplexibus non pepercerunt? Sullana porro tabula illa postrema, ut omittamus alias innumerabiles mortes, plures iugulauit senatores, quam Gothi uel spoliare potuerunt.

But in truth Sulla, while Marius was still alive, as victor took his seat on the Capitol itself—which had been safe from the Gauls—for the decreeing of butcheries; and when Marius had slipped away in flight, to return more ferocious and more blood-stained, that man, on the Capitol, even by a decree of the Senate, deprived many of life and of goods. But on the Marian side, with Sulla absent, what was there sacred to which they showed forbearance, when they did not spare even Mucius—a citizen, a senator, a pontiff—the very altar, where, as they say, the Roman Fates were, as he was clasping it with pitiable embracing? Moreover, that last Sullan tablet of proscription, to omit other innumerable deaths, cut the throats of more senators than the Goths were even able to despoil.

[XXX] Quia igitur fronte quo corde, qua inpudentia qua insipientia uel potius amentia illa diis suis non inputant, et haec nostro inputant Christo? Crudelia bella ciuilia, omnibus bellis hostilibus, auctoribus etiam eorum fatentibus, amariora, quibus illa res publica nec adflicta, sed omnino perdita iudicata est, longe ante aduentum Christi exorta sunt ,et sceleratarum concatenatione causarum a bello Mariano atque Sullano ad bella Sertorii et Catilinae (quorum a Sulla fuerat ille proscriptus, ile nutritus), inde ad Lepidi et Catuli bellum (quorum alter gesta Sullana rescindere, alter defendere cupiebat), inde ad Pompei et Caesaris (quorum Pompeius sectator Sullae fuerat eiusque potentiam uel aequauerat uel iam etiam superauerat; Caesar autem Pompei potentiam non ferebat, sed quia non habebat, quam tamen illo victo interfectoque transcendit), hinc ad alium Caesarem, qui post Augustus appellatus est, peruenerunt, quo imperante natus est Christus. Nam et ipse Augustus cum multis gessit bella ciuilia, et in eis etiam multi clarissimi uiri perierunt, inter quos et Cicero, disertus ille artifex regendae rei publicae.

[30] Therefore with what face, with what heart, with what impudence, with what insipience or rather madness do they not impute those things to their own gods, and impute these things to our Christ? The cruel civil wars, more bitter than all hostile wars, as even their authors confess, by which that commonwealth was judged not afflicted but altogether destroyed, arose long before the advent of Christ, and by a concatenation of criminal causes passed from the Marian and Sullan war to the wars of Sertorius and Catiline (of whom the former had been proscribed by Sulla, the latter nurtured), thence to the war of Lepidus and Catulus (of whom the one desired to rescind Sulla’s acts, the other to defend them), thence to that of Pompey and Caesar (of whom Pompey had been a sectator of Sulla and had either equaled or even already surpassed his power; but Caesar could not bear Pompey’s power, namely because he did not have it, which, however, when that man was conquered and slain, he transcended), from there to another Caesar, who afterwards was called Augustus, under whose rule Christ was born. For even Augustus himself waged civil wars with many, and in them also many most illustrious men perished, among whom even Cicero, that eloquent artificer of governing the commonwealth.

Pompei quippe uictorem Gaium Caesarem, qui uictoriam ciuilem clementer exercuit suisque aduersariis uitam dignitatemque donauit, tamquam regni adpetitorem quorundam nobilium coniuratio senatorum uelut pro rei publicae libertate in ipsa curia trucidauit. Huius deinde potentiam multum moribus dispar uitiisque omnibus inquinatus atque corruptus adfectare uidebatur Antonius, cui uehementer pro eadem illa uelut patriae libertate Cicero resistebat. Tunc emerserat mirabilis indolis adulescens ille alius Caesar, illius Gai Caesaris filius adoptiuus, qui, ut dixi, postea est appellatus Augustus.

Indeed Gaius Caesar, the victor over Pompey—who exercised his civil victory with clemency and granted to his adversaries life and dignity—was butchered in the very Curia by a conspiracy of senators, certain nobles, as though he were an aspirant to kingship, under the guise of the liberty of the commonwealth. Then Antony, very unlike him in morals and befouled and corrupted by all vices, seemed to be aiming at this man’s power; and Cicero was vehemently resisting him for that same so‑called liberty of the fatherland. At that time there had emerged that other Caesar, a youth of marvelous endowment, the adoptive son of that Gaius Caesar, who, as I said, was afterward called Augustus.

Huic adulescenti Caesari, ut eius potentia contra Antonium nutriretur, Cicero fauebat, sperans eum depulsa et oppressa Antoniii dominatione instauraturum rei publicae libertatem, usque adeo caecus atque inprouidus futurorum, ut ille ipse iuuenis, cuius dignitatem ac potestatem fouebat, et eundem Ciceronem occidendum Antonio quadam quasi concordiae pactione permitteret et ipsam libertatem rei publicae, pro qua multum ille clamauerat, dicioni propriae subiugaret.

To this adolescent Caesar, in order that his power might be nourished against Antony, Cicero showed favor, hoping that, with Antony’s domination driven back and crushed, he would restore the liberty of the republic—so blind and improvident of the future was he—that this very youth, whose dignity and power he was fostering, by a kind of pact of concord would permit that the same Cicero be killed by Antony, and would subjugate the very liberty of the republic, for which he had clamored much, to his own dominion.

[XXXI] Deos suos accusent de tantis malis, qui Christo nostro ingrati sunt de tantis bonis. Certe quando illa mala fiebant, calebant arae numinum Sabaeo thure sertisque recentibus halabant, clarebant sacerdotia, fana renidebant, sacrificabatur ludebatur furebatur in templis, quando passim tantu ciuium sanguis a ciuibus non modo in ceteris locis, uerum etiam inter ipsa deorum altaria fundebatur. Non elegit templum, quo confugeret Tullius, quia frustra elegerat Mucius.

[31] Let them accuse their gods for such great evils, who are ungrateful to our Christ for such great goods. Surely, when those evils were happening, the altars of the divinities were aglow with Sabaean incense, and with fresh garlands they exhaled fragrance; the priesthoods shone, the shrines glittered; there was sacrificing, there was playing, there was raging in the temples, when everywhere so much citizens’ blood by citizens, not only in other places, but even among the very altars of the gods, was being poured out. Tullius did not choose a temple to which to flee, because Mucius had chosen in vain.

Hi uero qui multo indignius insultant temporibus Christianis, aut ad loca Christo dicatissima confugerunt, aut illuc eos ut uiuerent etiam ipsi barbari deduxerunt. Illud scio et hoc mecum, quisquis sine studio partium iudicat, facillime agnoscit (ut omittam cetera quae multa commemoraui et alia multo plura quae commemorae longum putaui): si humanum genus ante bella Punica Christianam reciperet disciplinam et consequeretur rerum tanta uastatio, quanta illis bellis Europam Africamque contriuit, nullus talium, quales nunc patimur, nisi Christianae religioni mala illa tribuisset. Multo autem minus eorum uoces tolerarentur, quantum adtinet ad Romanos, si Christianae religionis receptionem et diffamationem uel inruptio <illa> Gallorum uel Tiberini fluminis igniumque illa depopulatio uel, quod cuncta mala praecedit, bella illa ciuilia sequerentur.

But those who far more unworthily exult over the Christian times either fled to places most dedicated to Christ, or even the barbarians themselves led them thither so that they might live. This I know, and this whoever judges without party zeal readily recognizes with me (to omit the rest, the many things I have recalled, and many others, much more, which I thought it long to recount): if the human race had received Christian discipline before the Punic wars, and there had followed a devastation of affairs as great as by those wars crushed Europe and Africa, no one of the sort such as we now endure would have attributed those evils to anything except the Christian religion. And far less would their voices be tolerated, so far as concerns the Romans, if the reception and dissemination of the Christian religion were followed either by the inruption <that> of the Gauls, or by that ravaging of the Tiber river and of fires, or—what precedes all evils—by those civil wars.

Mala etiam alia, quae usque adeo incredibiliter acciderunt, ut inter prodigia numerarentur, si Christianis temporibus accidissent, quibus ea nisi Christianis hominibus tamquam crimina obicerent? Omitto quippe illa, quae magis fuerunt mira quam noxia, boues locutos, infantes nondum natos de uteris matrum quaedam uerba clamasse, uolasse serpentes, feminas et gallinas et homines in masculinum secum fuisse conuersas et cetera huius modi, quae in eorum libris non fabulosis, sed historicis, seu uera seu falsa ssint, non inferunt hominibus perniciem, sed stuporem. Sed cum pluit terra, cum pluit creta, cum pluit lapidibus (non ut grando appellari solet hoc nomine, sed omnino lapidibus), haec profecto etiam grauiter laedere potuerunt.

Other evils also, which happened so incredibly that they were numbered among prodigies—if they had happened in Christian times, to whom but to Christian people would they have been imputed as crimes? I omit, to be sure, those which were more marvelous than noxious: oxen that spoke, infants not yet born crying out certain words from their mothers’ wombs, serpents flying, women and hens and men having been converted into the masculine sex, and other things of this sort, which in their books not fabulous but historical, whether true or false, do not bring destruction upon human beings, but stupefaction. But when it rained earth, when it rained chalk, when it rained stones (not as hail is wont to be called by this name, but entirely stones), these surely also could have grievously injured.

Legimus apud eos Aetnaeis ignibus ab ipso montis uertice usque ad litus proximum decurrentibus ita mare ferbuisse, ut rupes urerentur, ut pices nauium soluerentur. Hoc utique non leuiter noxium fuit, quamuis incredibiliter mirum. Eodem rursus aestu ignium tanta ui fauillae scripserunt oppletam esse Siciliam, ut Catinensis urbis tecta obruta et pressa dirueret; qua calamitate permoti misericorditer eiusdem anni tributum ei relaxauere Romani.

We read among them that, with Aetnaean fires running down from the very vertex of the mountain all the way to the nearest shore, the sea boiled, so that cliffs were scorched and the pitches of ships were dissolved. This was assuredly not lightly noxious, although incredibly marvelous. In the same surge of fires, they wrote again that Sicily was so filled with cinders that the roofs of the city of Catina, once buried and pressed down, were torn down; moved by this calamity, the Romans mercifully remitted to it the tribute of that same year.

Lucustarum etiam in Africa multitudinem prodigii similem fuisse, cum iam esset populi Romani prouincia, litteris mandauerunt; consumptis enim fructibus foliisque lignorum ingenti atque inaestimabili nube in mare dicunt esse deiectam; qua mortua redditaque litoribus atque hinc aere corrupto tantam ortam pestilentiam, ut in solo regno Masinissae octingenta hominum milia perisse referantur et multo amplius in terris litoribus proximis. Tunc Vticae ex triginta milibus iuniorum, quae ibi erant, decem milia remansisse confirmant. Talis itaque uanitas, qualem ferimus eique respondere compellimur, quid horum non Christianae religioni tribueret, si temporibus Christianis uideret?

They have consigned to letters that in Africa, too, a multitude of locusts was similar to a prodigy, when it was already a province of the Roman people; for, the fruits and the leaves of the trees having been consumed, they say that in a huge and inestimable cloud it was cast into the sea; which, being dead and returned to the shores, and thence with the air corrupted, so great a pestilence arose, that in the kingdom of Masinissa alone 800 thousand human beings are reported to have perished, and much more in the lands nearest the shores. Then at Utica, out of 30 thousand of the younger men who were there, they affirm that 10 thousand remained. Such vanity, therefore, as we endure and are compelled to answer it—what of these would he not attribute to the Christian religion, if he were to see them in Christian times?

Et tamen diis suis ista non tribuunt, quorum cultum ideo requirunt, ne ista uel minora patiantur, cum ea maiora pertulerint a quibus antea colebantur.

And yet they do not attribute these things to their gods, whose cult they therefore require, lest they suffer these things or even lesser ones, though they have borne greater from those by whom they were formerly worshiped.