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The prevalence of parties among the people, and of factions in the senate, and of all evil practices attendant on them, had its origin at Rome, a few years before, during a period of tranquillity, and amid the abundance of all that mankind regarded as desirable. For, before the destruction of Carthage, the senate and people managed the affairs of the republic with mutual moderation and forbearance; there were no contests among the citizens for honor or ascendency; but the dread of an enemy kept the state in order. When that fear, however, was removed from their minds, licentiousness and pride, evils which prosperity loves to foster, immediately began to prevail; and thus peace, which they had so eagerly desired in adversity, proved, when they had obtained it, more grievous and fatal than adversity itself. The patricians carried their authority, and the people their liberty, to excess; every man took, snatched, and seized1 what he could. There was a complete division into two factions, and the republic was torn in pieces between them. Yet the nobility still maintained an ascendency by conspiring together; for the strength of the people, being disunited and dispersed among a multitude, was less able to exert itself. Things were accordingly directed, both at home and in the field, by the will of a small number of men, at whose disposal were the treasury, the provinces, offices, honors, and triumphs; while the people were oppressed with military service and with poverty, and the generals divided the spoils of war with a few of their friends. The parents and children of the soldiers,2 meantime, if they chanced to dwell near a powerful neighbor, were driven from their homes. Thus avarice, leagued with power, disturbed, violated, and wasted every thing, without moderation or restraint; disregarding alike reason and religion, and rushing headlong, as it were, to its own destruction. For whenever any arose among the nobility,3 who preferred true glory to unjust power, the state was immediately in a tumult, and civil discord spread with as much disturbance as attends a convulsion of the earth.

1 XLI. Took, snatched, and seized] “Ducere, trahere, rapere.” “"Ducere conveys the notion of cunning and fraud; trahere of some degree of force; rapere of open violence."” Müller. The words chiefly refer to offices in the state, as is apparent from what follows.

2 The parents and children of the soldiers, etc.]

Quid quod usque proximos
Revellis agri terminos, et ultra
Limites clientium
Salis avarus? Pellitur paternos
In sinu ferens deos
Et uxor et vir, sordidosque natos.

Hor. Od., ii. 18.

“What can this impious av'rice stay ?
Their sacred landmarks torn away,
You plunge into your neighbor's grounds,
And overleap your client's bounds,
Helpless the wife and husband flee
And in their arms, expell'd by thee,
Their household gods, adored in vain,
Their infants, too, a sordid train.

Francis.

3 Among the nobility] “Ex nobilitate.” Cortius injudiciously omits those words. The reference is to the Gracchi.

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