Florus

“ When once, therefore, that sad and dismal force and storm of the Punic war had arisen in Spain, and had forged, in the fire of Saguntum, the thunderbolt long before intended for the Romans, it immediately burst, as if hurried along by resistless violence, through the middle of the Alps, and descended, from those snows of incredible altitude, on the plains of Italy, as if it had been hurled from the skies. ”

“ Fortune, in consequence, envying the sovereign people of the earth, armed it to its own destruction. The outrages of Marius and Cinna had already made a sort of prelude within the city, as if by way of trial. The storm of Sylla had thundered even further, but still within the bounds of Italy. The fury of Caesar and Pompey, as with a general deluge or conflagration, overran the city, Italy, other countries and nations, and finally the whole empire wherever it extended; so that it cannot properly be called a civil war, or war with allies; neither can it be termed a foreign war ”

“ The Roman people, during seven hundred years, from the time of king Romulus to that of Caesar Augustus, performed such mighty acts both in peace and war, that if any one compares the greatness of their empire with its years, he will think it out of proportion to its age. [1] So far throughout the world have they extended their arms, that those who read their exploits, learn the fate, not of one people only, but of all mankind. ”

“ Pompey himself directed his efforts against Cilicia, the source and origin of the war. Nor did the enemy shrink from engagement with him, not, indeed, from confidence in their strength, but, as they were hard pressed, they were willing to appear daring. But they did nothing more than meet the first onset, for immediately afterwards, when they saw the beaks of our ships encircling them, they threw down their weapons and oars, and, with a general clapping of hands, which was with them a sign of supplication, intreated for quarter. Never did we obtain a victory with so litte bloodshed. ”

“ In the consulship of Mark Antony and Publius Dolabella, when Fortune was proceeding to transfer the empire to the Caesars, there arose various and manifold convulsions in the state; and, as it happens in the annual revolution of the heavens, that the constellations by their motions occasion thunder, and make known their change of place by change of weather, so, in the change of condition in the Roman government, that is, of the whole human race, the body of the empire was shaken throughout, and distracted with all kinds of perils, and civil wars both by land and sea. ”

“ Despairing, therefore, of escape, and being driven to the utmost rage and fury, they resolved to die in the following manner. They first destroyed their captains, and then themselves and their native city, with sword and poison and a general conflagration. Peace be to the ashes of the most brave of all cities; a city, in my opinion, most happy in its very sufferings; a city which protected its allies with honour, and withstood, with its own force, and for so long a period, a people supported by the strength of the whole world. ”

“ After his expedition against the Parthians, while he was disgusted with war and lived at ease, he fell in love with Cleopatra, and, as if his affairs were quite prosperous, enjoyed himself in the queen's embraces.
The Egyptian woman demanded of the drunken general, as the price of her favours, nothing less than the Roman empire. This Antony promised her; as though the Romans had been easier to conquer than the Parthians. ”

“ But the Roman people, full of confidence from so many successes, thought it would be a noble enterprise to subdue such a desparate enemy in his own Africa. Directing their whole force, therefore, under the leadership of Scipio, unpon Africa itself, they began to imitate Hannibal, and to avenge upon Africa, the sufferings of their own Italy. What forces of Hasdrubal, (good gods!) what armies of Syphax, did that commander put to flight! ”

“ And I know not whether it would not have been better for the Roman people to have been content with Sicily and Africa, or even to have been without them, while still enjoying the dominion of Italy, than to grow to such greatness as to be ruined by their own strength. For what else produced those intestine distractions but excessive good fortune? It was the conquest of Syria that first corrupted us; and the succession afterwards, in Asia, to the estate of the king of Pergamus. ”

“ Marius then returned from Africa, the greater for his misfortunes; for the report of his imprisonment, chains, flight, and exile, had surrounded his dignity with a certain awe. At the name of so great a man people flocked together from all parts; slaves, (a disgraceful proceeding,) and persons condemned to the prisons, were armed in his cause; and the unhappy general easily found an army. Claiming by force, therefore, a restoration to his country from which he had by force been expelled, he might seem to have acted with justice, had he not stained his cause with cruelty. ”

“ Who, after the destruction of Carthage, would have expected any war in Africa? Yet Numidia roused herself with no small effort; and in Jugurtha there was something to be dreaded after Hannibal. This subtle prince assailed the Romans, when they were illustrious and invincible in arms, by means of his wealth; and it fortunately happened, beyond the expectation of all, that a king eminent in artifice was ensnared by artifice. ”

“ Antony, enraged that Octavius was preferred before him, raised a desperate war to set aside the adoption of the spirited young man. Seeing that he was but a tender youth, under eighteen years of age, and therefore a fit and proper subject, as he thought, for any ill-usage, while he himself was of high dignity from his long service with Caesar, he proceeded to dismember his inheritance by clandestine acts of injustice, to attack him personally with opprobrious language, and to hinder, by all imaginable artifices, his co-optation into the Julian family. ”

“ Camillus, suddenly attacking them in the rear, made such a slaughter of them as to wash out all traces of the fire with an inundation of Gallic blood. But with pleasure may we give thanks to the immortal gods on the very account of this great destruction; for that fire buried the cottages of the shepherds, and that flame hid the poverty of Romulus. What, indeed, was the effect of that conflagration, but that a city, destined for the seat of men and gods, should not seem to have been destroyed or overthrown, but rather cleansed and purified? ”

“ Ocriculum and Grumentum, Fesulae and Carseoli, Reate, Nuceria, and Picentia, were laid waste with slaughter, fire, and sword. The forces of Rutilius, the forces of Caepio, were alike defeated. Julius Caesar himself, having lost his army, and being brought back to Rome covered with blood, passed through the city a wretched corpse. But the great good fortune of the Roman people, always more remarkable in adversity than prosperity, rose again in all its might. ”

“ Most of the towns had revolted to the enemy, whose vigorous commander used even the strength of Italy against the Romans. However, we had now forced him out of many towns and districts. Tarentum had returned to our side; and Capua, the seat, home, and second country of Hannibal, was again in our hands; the loss of which caused the Punic leader so much affliction, that he then directed all his force against Rome.
O people worthy of the empire of the world, worthy of the favour and admiration of all, not only men but gods! ”

“ He was, besides, called Father of his country, and Perpetual Dictator; and at last, whether with his own consent is doubtful, the ensigns of royalty were offered him on the Rostra by the consul Antony.
But all these honours were but as decorations laid on a victim doomed to die. The envy of others overcame the clemency of the ruler, and his very power of conferring benefits was insupportable to the free. Nor was long delay granted him, before Brutus and Cassius, and others of the nobility, conspired to put him to death. How great is the power of fate! ”

“ To say the truth, no country is better furnished with men, money, and arms than Syria; but it had fallen into the hands of so spiritless a monarch, that the highest praise of Antiochus was that he was conquered by the Romans. There were two persons who impelled the king to war; on the one hand Thoas, prince of Aetolia, who complained that his service in the war against Macedonia had not been sufficiently rewarded by the Romans; on the other, Hannibal, who, conquered in Africa, exiled from his country, and impatient of peace, was seeking through the whole world for an enemy to the Roman people. ”

“ In Egypt, indeed, a war arose against Caesar without the influence of Roman faction. Ptolemy, king of Alexandria, having committed the crowning atrocity of the civil war, and assured himself of the friendship of Caesar by means of Pompey's head, but Fortune, at the same time, demanding vengeance for the manes of so great a man, an opportunity for her purpose was not long wanting. Cleopatra, the king's sister, falling at the feet of Caesar, intreated that a part of the kingdom might be restored to her. ”

“ How much more nobly did a woman behave, the wife of the general, who, taking hold of her two children, threw herself from the top of her house into the midst of the flames, imitating the queen that built Carthage. How great a city was then destroyed, is shown, to say nothing of other things, by the duration of the fire, for the flames could scarcely be extinguished at the end of seventeen days; flames which the enemy themselves had raised in their houses and temples, that since the city could not be rescued from the Romans, all matter for triumph might at least be burned. ”

“ At a subsequent period, when the forces of the empire were engaged in different parts of the world, who would believe that Sicily was much more cruelly devastated by a war with slaves than in that with the Carthaginians? This country, fruitful in corn, and, in a manner, a suburban province, was covered with large estates of many Roman citizens; and the numerous slave-houses, and fettered tillers of the ground, supplied enough force for a war. ”