For it was this which made Regulus willing to return to his enemies, and this which made the Saguntines unwilling to revolt to their enemies.Does, then, the keeping of faith provoke the gods to anger? Or is it possible that not only individuals, but even entire communities, perish while the gods are propitious to them? Let our adversaries choose which alternative they will.If, on the one hand, those gods are enraged at the keeping of faith, let them enlist perjured persons as their worshippers.If, on the other hand, men and states can suffer great and terrible calamities, and at last perish while favored by the gods, then does their worship not produce happiness as its fruit.Let those, therefore, who suppose that they have fallen into distress because their religious worship has been abolished, lay aside their anger; for it were quite possible that did the gods not only remain with them, but regard them with favor, they might yet be left to mourn an unhappy lot, or might, even like Regulus and the Saguntines, be horribly tormented, and at last perish miserably.
CHAP.21.--OF THE INGRATITUDE OF ROME TO SCIPIO, ITS DELIVERER, ANDOF ITS MANNERS
DURING THE PERIOD WHICH SALLUST DESCRIBES AS THE BEST.
Omitting many things, that I may not exceed the limits of the work Ihave proposed to myself, I come to the epoch between the second and last Punic wars, during which, according to Sallust, the Romans lived with the greatest virtue and concord.Now, in this period of virtue and harmony, the great Scipio, the liberator of Rome and Italy, who had with surprising ability brought to a close the second Punic war--that horrible, destructive, dangerous contest--who had defeated Hannibal and subdued Carthage, and whose whole life is said to have been dedicated to the gods, and cherished in their temples,--this Scipio, after such a triumph, was obliged to yield to the accusations of his enemies, and to leave his country, which his valor had saved and liberated, to spend the remainder of his days in the town of Liternum, so indifferent to a recall from exile, that he is said to have given orders that not even his remains should lie in his ungrateful country.It was at that time also that the pro-consul Cn.
Manlius, after subduing the Galatians, introduced into Rome the luxury of Asia, more destructive than all hostile armies.It was then that iron bedsteads and expensive carpets were first used; then, too, that female singers were admitted at banquets, and other licentious abominations were introduced.But at present I meant to speak, not of the evils men voluntarily practise, but of those they suffer in spite of themselves.So that the case of Scipio, who succumbed to his enemies, and died in exile from the country he had rescued, was mentioned by me as being pertinent to the present discussion; for this was the reward he received from those Roman gods whose temples he saved from Hannibal, and who are worshipped only for the sake of securing temporal happiness.But since Sallust, as we have seen, declares that the manners of Rome were never better than at that time, I therefore judged it right to mention the Asiatic luxury then introduced, that it might be seen that what he says is true, only when that period is compared with the others during which the morals were certainly worse, and the factions more violent.For at that time--I mean between the second and third Punic war--that notorious Lex Voconia was passed, which prohibited a man from making a woman, even an only daughter, his heir; than which law I am at a loss to conceive what could be more unjust.It is true that in the interval between these two Punic wars the misery of Rome was somewhat less.Abroad, indeed, their forces were consumed by wars, yet also consoled by victories; while at home there were not such disturbances as at other times.But when the last Punic war had terminated in the utter destruction of Rome's rival, which quickly succumbed to the other Scipio, who thus earned for himself the, surname of Africanus, then the Roman republic was overwhelmed with such a host of ills, which sprang from the corrupt manners induced by prosperity and security, that the sudden overthrow of Carthage is seen to have injured Rome more seriously than her long-continued hostility.
During the whole subsequent period down to the time of Caesar Augustus, who seems to have entirely deprived the Romans of liberty,--a liberty, indeed, which in their own judgment was no longer glorious, but full of broils and dangers, and which now was quite enervated and languishing,--and who submitted all things again to the will of a monarch, and infused as it were a new life into the sickly old age of the republic, and inaugurated a fresh rÈgime;--during this whole period, I say, many military disasters were sustained on a variety of occasions, all of which Ihere pass by.There was specially the treaty of Numantia, blotted as it was with extreme disgrace; for the sacred chickens, they say, flew out of the coop, and thus augured disaster to Mancinus the consul; just as if, during all these years in which that little city of Numantia had withstood the besieging army of Rome, and had become a terror to the republic, the other generals had all marched against it under unfavorable auspices.
CHAP.22.--OF THE EDICT OF MITHRIDATES, COMMANDING THAT ALL ROMAN CITIZENSFOUND
IN ASIA SHOULD BE SLAIN.
