Dio's Rome, Volume 5, Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 343 pages of information about Dio's Rome, Volume 5, Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211).

Dio's Rome, Volume 5, Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 343 pages of information about Dio's Rome, Volume 5, Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211).

[Sidenote:—­10—­] After speaking these words to some he came to a second group and said:  “Now is the occasion, now, fellow-soldiers, for zeal, for daring.  If to-day you prove yourselves brave men, you will recover what has slipped from your grasp.  If you overcome this enemy, no one else will any longer withstand us.  By one such battle you will both make sure of your present possessions and subdue whatever is left.  All soldiers stationed anywhere else will emulate you and foes will be terror-stricken.  Therefore, since it is in your own hands either to rule fearlessly all mankind, both the nations that your fathers left under your control and those which you yourselves have gained in addition, or else to be bereft of them utterly, choose rather to be free, to rule, to live in wealth, to enjoy prosperity, than through indolence to suffer the reverse of these conditions.”

[Sidenote:—­11—­] After making an address of this sort to the group in question, he came up to the third division and said also to them:  “You have heard what sort of acts these wretches have committed against us, nay more, you have even seen some of them.  Therefore choose either yourselves to suffer the same treatment as previous victims and furthermore to be driven entirely out of Britain, or else through victory to avenge those that perished and also to give to the rest of mankind an example of mild clemency toward the obedient, of necessary severity toward the rebellious.  I entertain the highest hopes of victory for our side, counting on the following factors:  first, the assistance of the gods; they usually cooperate with the party that has been wronged:  second, our inherited bravery; we are Romans and have shown ourselves superior to all mankind in various instances of valor:  next, our experience; we have defeated and subdued these very men that are now arrayed against us:  last, our good name; it is not worthy opponents but our slaves with whom we are coming in conflict, persons who enjoyed freedom and self-government only so far as we allowed it.  Yet even should the outcome prove contrary to our hope,—­and I will not shrink from mentioning even this contingency,—­it is better for us to fall fighting bravely than to be captured and impaled, to see our own entrails cut out, to be spitted on red hot skewers, to perish dissolved in boiling water, when we have fallen into the power of creatures that are very beasts, savage, lawless, godless.  Let us therefore either beat them or die on the spot.  Britain shall be a noble memorial to us, even though all subsequent Romans should be driven from it; for in any case our bodies shall forever possess the land.”

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Dio's Rome, Volume 5, Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.