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A pretty decree of the senate it was, truly, by which the temple of
Concord was built on the spot where that disastrous rising had taken
place, and where so many citizens of every rank had fallen. I suppose
it was that the monument of the Gracchi's punishment might strike the
eye and affect the memory of the pleaders. But what was this but to
deride the gods, by building a temple to that goddess who, had she
been in the city, would not have suffered herself to be torn by such
dissensions? Or was it that Concord was chargeable with that
bloodshed because she had deserted the minds of the citizens, and was
therefore incarcerated in that temple? For if they had any regard to
consistency, why did they not rather erect on that site a temple of
Discord? Or is there a reason for Concord being a goddess while
Discord is none? Does the distinction of Labeo hold here, who would
have made the one a good, the other an evil deity?, a distinction
which seems to have been suggested to him by the mere fact of his
observing at Rome a temple to Fever as well as one to Health. But,
on the same ground, Discord as well as Concord ought to be deified.
A hazardous venture the Romans made in provoking so wicked a goddess,
and in forgetting that the destruction of Troy had been occasioned by
her taking offence. For, being indignant that she was not invited
with the other gods [to the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis], she
created dissension among the three goddesses by sending in the golden
apple, which occasioned strife in heaven, victory to Venus, the rape
of Helen, and the destruction of Troy. Wherefore, if she was
perhaps offended that the Romans had not thought her worthy of a temple
among the other gods in their city, and therefore disturbed the state
with such tumults, to how much fiercer passion would she be roused when
she saw the temple of her adversary erected on the scene of that
massacre, or, in other words, on the scene of her own handiwork!
Those wise and learned men are enraged at our laughing at these
follies; and yet, being worshippers of good and bad divinities alike,
they cannot escape this dilemma about Concord and Discord: either
they have neglected the worship of these goddesses, and preferred
Fever and War, to whom there are shrines erected of great antiquity,
or they have worshipped them, and after all Concord has abandoned
them, and Discord has tempestuously hurled them into civil wars.
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