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For, as far as this life of mortals is concerned, which is spent and
ended in a few days, what does it matter under whose government a dying
man lives, if they who govern do not force him to impiety and
iniquity? Did the Romans at all harm those nations, on whom, when
subjugated, they imposed their laws, except in as far as that was
accomplished with great slaughter in war? Now, had it been done with
consent of the nations, it would have been done with greater success,
but there would have been no glory of conquest, for neither did the
Romans themselves live exempt from those laws which they imposed on
others. Had this been done without Mars and Bellona, so that there
should have been no place for victory, no one conquering where no one
had fought, would not the condition of the Romans and of the other
nations have been one and the same, especially if that had been done at
once which afterwards was done most humanely and most acceptably,
namely, the admission of all to the rights of Roman citizens who
belonged to the Roman empire, and if that had been made the privilege
of all which was formerly the privilege of a few, with this one
condition, that the humbler class who had no lands of their own should
live at the public expense, an alimentary impost, which would have
been paid with a much better grace by them into the hands of good
administrators of the republic, of which they were members, by their
sown hearty consent, than it would have been paid with had it to be
extorted from them as conquered men? For I do not see what it makes
for the safety, good morals, and certainly not for the dignity, of
men, that some have conquered and others have been conquered, except
that it yields them that most insane pomp of human glory, in which
"they have received their reward," who burned with excessive desire
of it, and carried on most eager wars. For do not their lands pay
tribute? Have they any privilege of learning what the others are not
privileged to learn? Are there not many senators in the other
countries who do not even know Rome by sight? Take away outward
show, and what are all men after all but men? But even though the
perversity of the age should permit that all the better men should be
more highly honored than others, neither thus should human honor be
held at a great price, for it is smoke which has no weight. But let
us avail ourselves even in these things of the kindness of God. Let
us consider how great things they despised, how great things they
endured, what lusts they subdued for the sake of human glory, who
merited that glory, as it were, in reward for such virtues; and let
this be useful to us even in suppressing pride, so that, as that city
in which it has been promised us to reign as far surpasses this one as
heaven is distant from the earth, as eternal life surpasses temporal
joy, solid glory empty praise, or the society of angels the society of
mortals, or the glory of Him who made the sun and moon the light of
the sun and moon, the citizens of so great a country may not seem to
themselves to have done anything very great, if, in order to obtain
it, they have done some good works or endured some evils, when those
men for this terrestrial country already obtained, did such great
things, suffered such great things. And especially are all these
things to be considered, because the remission of sins which collects
citizens to the celestial country has something in it to which a shadowy
resemblance is found in that asylum of Romulus, whither escape from
the punishment of all manner of crimes congregated that multitude with
which the state was to be founded.
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