evil up against another, through pretence of avenging the side which is for the moment at a disadvantage, as if they were repelling a regular, everyday danger; and individually they free themselves from it, but they ruin the community in every way. [-30-] Do you not see how much time we have lost in fighting one another, how many great evils we have endured meanwhile, and, what is worse than that, inflicted?  And who could count the vast mass of money of which we have stripped our allies and robbed the gods, which furthermore we have contributed ourselves from what we did not possess, and then expended it against one another?  Or who could number the mass of men that have been lost, not only of ordinary persons (that is beyond computation) but of knights and senators, each one of whom was able in foreign wars to preserve the whole city by his life and death?  How many Curtii, how many Decii, Fabii, Gracchi, Marcelli, Scipiones have been killed?  Not, by Jupiter, to repel Samnites or Latins or Spaniards or Carthaginians, but only to perish themselves in the end.  And for those under arms who died, no matter how deep sorrow one might feel for them, there is less reason to lament.  They entered the battles as volunteers, if it is proper to call volunteers men compelled by fear, and they met even if an unjust at least a brave death, in an equal struggle; and in the hope that they might even survive and conquer they fell without grieving.  But how might one mourn as they deserve those who were pitiably destroyed in their houses, in the roads, in the Forum, in the senate-chamber even, on the Capitol even, by violence—­not only men but also women, not only those in their prime, but also old men and children?  And after subjecting one another to so many of these reprisals of such a nature as all our enemies put together never inflicted upon us (nor were we ever the authors of anything similar to them), so far from loathing such acts and manfully wishing to have done with them, we rejoice and hold festivals and term those who are guilty of them benefactors.  Honestly, I cannot deem this life that we have been leading human; it is rather that of wild beasts which are consumed by one another.

[-31-] “For what is definitely past, however, why should we lament further?  We cannot now prevent its having happened.  Let us fix our attention upon the future.  That is, indeed, the reason why I have been mentioning former events, not for the purpose of giving a list of national calamities which ought never to have occurred, but that by exhibiting them I might persuade you to preserve at least what is left.  This is the only benefit one can derive from evils,—­to guard against ever again enduring anything similar.  This is most within your power at the present moment, while the danger is just beginning, while not many have yet united, and those who are unruly have gained no advantage over one another nor suffered any setback, so that by hope of superiority or anger at inferiority they are led