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But they supposed that, in erecting the temple of Concord within the
view of the orators, as a memorial of the punishment and death of the
Gracchi, they were raising an effectual obstacle to sedition. How
much effect it had, is indicated by the still more deplorable wars that
followed. For after this the orators endeavored not to avoid the
example of the Gracchi, but to surpass their projects; as did Lucius
Saturninus, a tribune of the people, and Caius Servilius the
praetor, and some time after Marcus Drusus, all of whom stirred
seditions which first of all occasioned bloodshed, and then the social
wars by which Italy was grievously injured, and reduced to a piteously
desolate and wasted condition. Then followed the servile war and the
civil wars; and in them what battles were fought, and what blood was
shed, so that almost all the peoples of Italy, which formed the main
strength of the Roman empire, were conquered as if they were
barbarians! Then even historians themselves find it difficult to
explain how the servile war was begun by a very few, certainly less
than seventy gladiators, what numbers of fierce and cruel men attached
themselves to these, how many of the Roman generals this band
defeated, and how it laid waste many districts and cities. And that
was not the only servile war: the province of Macedonia, and
subsequently Sicily and the sea-coast, were also depopulated by bands
of slaves. And who can adequately describe either the horrible
atrocities which the pirates first committed, or the wars they
afterwards maintained against Rome?
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