Sallust

“ But we have at home—poverty, abroad—debt; a poor estate but much worse hope. In a word, what have we left except a wretched existence? Awake then at length—behold that liberty, that liberty which ye have so often desired; nay besides, riches, honour, and glory are placed before your eyes; fortune has given all these as rewards to the conquerors. Let the affair itself, the time, danger, want, the magnificent spoils of war, exhort you more than my speech. Use me either as a commander or soldier, neither my mind nor my body shall be absent from you. ”

“ Do not suffer me, Conscript Fathers, descended from that family, and the grandson of Masinissa, to implore your aid in vain. If I had nothing to plead in order to obtain it but my wretched condition; that I, who was but lately a prince, of high descent, of signal renown, and great power, am now reduced by complicated misery, destitute and forlorn, and dependent on others for succour;—it would still become the dignity of the Roman people to protect me from oppression, and not to suffer any man to enlarge his territories by iniquity. ”

“ It is not a matter of plundering the treasury or of extorting money from our allies—serious crimes, it is true, but so common now-a-days as to be disregarded. Nay, the senate’s dignity has been prostituted to a ruthless enemy, your sovereignty has been betrayed, your country has been offered for sale at home and abroad. Unless cognizance is taken of these outrages, unless the guilty are punished, what will remain except to pass our lives in submission to those who are guilty of these acts? For to do with impunity whatever one fancies is to be king. ”

“ To hope for safety in flight, when you have turned away from the enemy the arms by which the body is defended, is indeed madness. In battle, those who are most afraid are always in most danger; but courage is equivalent to a rampart. When I contemplate you, soldiers, and when I consider your past exploits, a strong hope of victory animates me. Your spirit, your age, your valor, give me confidence; to say nothing of necessity, which makes even cowards brave. ”

“ King Bocchus, it is a great joy to us since the gods have advised you, so great a man, to prefer at length peace to war, and not to defile yourself, the best of all men, by uniting with Jugurtha, the worst man alive; and at the same time that you are removing from us the painful necessity of punishing alike you who are merely under a mistake, and him that most vile wretch. Besides, it has always seemed better to the Roman people from their low origin to procure friends rather than slaves, and they have always thought it safer to rule over willing than coerced subjects. ”

“ After long reflection I became convinced that it had all been accomplished by the eminent merit of a few citizens; that it was due to them that poverty had triumphed over riches, and a few over a multitude. But after the state had become demoralized by extravagance and sloth, it was the commonwealth in its turn that was enabled by its greatness to sustain the shortcomings of its generals and magistrates, and for a long time, as when mothers are exhausted by child-bearing, no one at all was produced at Rome who was great in merit. ”

“ I have learned by experience, fellow-soldiers, that words cannot inspire courage, nor a general’s speech render a spiritless army brave and intrepid. Every man displays in battle just so much courage as nature or habit has given him, and no more. It is to no purpose to exhort him whom neither glory nor danger can animate; his fear deprives him of his hearing. I have assembled you, fellow-soldiers, to instruct you in a few particulars, and to lay before you the grounds of my final resolution. ”

“ Do not think that our ancestors made the republic mighty from being small by their arms; if the case were so, we should then enjoy it most flourishing, since of allies and citizens, of arms moreover and horses, we have a larger stock than they had. But there were other things that made them great, none of which we have; industry at home, a just government abroad; minds fair and candid in debate, and neither slaves to error nor passion. Instead of these we have luxury and avarice, in public, poverty, in private, opulence; we praise riches and pursue idleness. ”

“ By your gallant behaviour you have united us to the Romans in closer ties of friendship than before, and revived the honour of our family in Spain. In a word (what is the most difficult thing among men,) you have even overcome envy itself by glory. Now, as nature is putting a period to my days, I beseech and adjure you, by this right hand and the honour of a prince, to embrace with a tender and affectionate regard these my sons, near relations by birth, brethren by my generosity; and not to prefer the friendship of strangers to that of persons united to you by blood. ”

“ But let the nobility, if they please, pursue what is delightful and dear to them; let them devote themselves to licentiousness and luxury; let them pass their age as they have passed their youth, in revelry and feasting, the slaves of gluttony and debauchery; but let them leave the toil and dust of the field, and other such matters, to us, to whom they are more grateful than banquets. This, however, they will not do; for when these most infamous of men have disgraced themselves by every species of turpitude, they proceed to claim the distinctions due to the most honorable. ”

“ Slaves bought with a price do not put up with unjust treatment from their masters; will you, Roman citizens born to power, endure slavery with patience? But who are they who have seizing upon our country? Men stained with crime, with gory hands, of monstrous greed, guilty, yet at the same time full of pride, who have made honour, reputation, loyalty, in short everything honourable and dishonourable, a source of gain. Some of them are safeguarded by having slain tribunes of the commons, others by unjust prosecutions, many by having shed your blood. ”

“ And though Metellus had virtue, glory, and other qualifications to be desired by the good in abundance, yet there was in him a haughty spirit and pride, the common bane of the nobility. Wherefore being at first startled by this unheard of thing, he wondered at his meaning, and as if through friendship advised him, “not to begin so foolish an undertaking, nor carry his thoughts above his situation; all things were not to be coveted by all men; his present condition ought abundantly to please him; and lastly he should beware of seeking from the Roman people what might rightly be denied him.” ”

“ Those whom Jugurtha took, for the most part he crucified or cast to the wild beasts. The few that survive drag out a life that is worse than death in the darkness of their dungeons, with sorrow and lamentation. If all that I have lost, or that has turned from a blessing to a curse, were mine, as of old, I should still entreat your aid in the hour of sudden calamity, seeing that the lords of so mighty an empire must needs uphold justice and chastise iniquity. But now I am an exile from my home and country, forsaken and despoiled of my royalty. ”

“ But when sloth has usurped the place of industry, and lawlessness and insolence have superseded self-restraint and justice, the fortune of princes changes with their character. Thus the sway is always passing to the best man from the hands of his inferior.
Success in agriculture, navigation, and architecture depends invariably upon mental excellence. Yet many men, being slaves to appetite and sleep, have passed through life untaught and untrained, like mere wayfarers in these men we see, contrary to Nature’s intent, the body a source of pleasure, the soul a burden. ”

“ For certainly either your fear or their injustice has induced you, Silanus, consul elect, to vote for a new kind of punishment. As to your fear it is superfluous to speak, especially since by the diligence of that most illustrious man, the consul, there are so many guards under arms. And as to the punishment, we may say indeed what is the truth; that in a state of mourning and misery, death is a deliverance from troubles, not a punishment; that puts an end to all human evils, beyond it there is room for neither sorrow nor joy. ”

“ My father, through age, yielded to the lot of human nature; Jugurtha, trampling on every tie of nature and gratitude, imbrued his wicked hands in the blood of my brother. My other friends and relations, wherever he took them, he has destroyed by a variety of cruel deaths: some he has crucified; others he has thrown to wild beasts; those few whose lives he has spared are imprisoned in gloomy dungeons, there to lead a life more insupportable than death, in sorrow and anguish. ”

“ Who should be more a friend than one brother to another? or what stranger will you find faithful to you if you are an enemy to your own relations? I for my part deliver you a secure kingdom if you are good to each other, but if you are wicked, a weak one. For by unanimity small states grow great, by discord the greatest melt away. But it becomes you, Jugurtha, more than these, who are more advanced in age and wisdom than they are, to take care lest any thing should happen otherwise. ”

“ It is worth your while, when you look upon houses and villas reared to the size of cities, to pay a visit to the temples of the gods built by our forefathers, most reverent of men. But they adorned the shrines of the gods with piety, their own homes with glory, while from the vanquished they took naught save the power of doing harm. The men of to-day, on the contrary, basest of creatures, with supreme wickedness are robbing our allies of all that those heroes in the hour of victory had left them; they act as though the one and only way to rule were to wrong. ”

“ But in truth what person who has the mind of a man can bear that they should have such an excess of money, which they lavish in banking out the sea, and levelling mountains, but that to us there should be wanting even money enough for the necessities of life? That they should join two houses together apiece or more, but that we should nowhere have a household hearth? When they buy paintings, statues, carved works, pull down some places, build others, and lastly in every way gather money, and oppress us, and yet they are unable even with the greatest luxury to spend their wealth. ”

“ But after the destruction of Numantia, Publius Scipio, having resolved to dismiss his auxiliary forces and himself to return home, first rewarded and praised Jugurtha before all the army and then, taking him apart into his tent, bade him seek the friendship of the Roman people by public acts rather than by private intrigue, nor ever to put his trust in the power of gifts. ‘It is perilous,’ he said, ‘to buy from a few what belongs to many. Continue to exercise those talents that are your own, and glory and power will come unasked. ”