the temple of Concord._
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 endeavoured 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 prætor, 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?