contributed to the well-being of those whom they conquered._
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 own 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,[212] 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 honoured than others, neither thus should human
honour 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.