the senate on the scene of these seditions and massacres._
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.[151] 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.