And surely we may ask what wrong poor Ilium had done, that, in the
first heat of the civil wars of Rome, it should suffer at the hand of
Fimbria, the veriest villain among Marius' partisans, a more fierce
and cruel destruction than the Grecian sack.[125] For when the Greeks
took it many escaped, and many who did not escape were suffered to
live, though in captivity. But Fimbria from the first gave orders
that not a life should be spared, and burnt up together the city and
all its inhabitants. Thus was Ilium requited, not by the Greeks, whom
she had provoked by wrong-doing; but by the Romans, who had been
built out of her ruins; while the gods, adored alike of both sides,
did simply nothing, or, to speak more correctly, could do nothing.
Is it then true, that at this time also, after Troy had repaired
the damage done by the Grecian fire, all the gods by whose help the
kingdom stood, "forsook each fane, each sacred shrine?"
But if so, I ask the reason; for in my judgment, the conduct of
the gods was as much to be reprobated as that of the townsmen to
be applauded. For these closed their gates against Fimbria, that
they might preserve the city for Sylla, and were therefore burnt
and consumed by the enraged general. Now, up to this time, Sylla's
cause was the more worthy of the two; for till now he used arms to
restore the republic, and as yet his good intentions had met with no
reverses. What better thing, then, could the Trojans have done? What
more honourable, what more faithful to Rome, or more worthy of her
relationship, than to preserve their city for the better part of the
Romans, and to shut their gates against a parricide of his country?
It is for the defenders of the gods to consider the ruin which this
conduct brought on Troy. The gods deserted an adulterous people, and
abandoned Troy to the fires of the Greeks, that out of her ashes a
chaster Rome might arise. But why did they a second time abandon this
same town, allied now to Rome, and not making war upon her noble
daughter, but preserving a most stedfast and pious fidelity to Rome's
most justifiable faction? Why did they give her up to be destroyed, not
by the Greek heroes, but by the basest of the Romans? Or, if the gods
did not favour Sylla's cause, for which the unhappy Trojans maintained
their city, why did they themselves predict and promise Sylla such
successes? Must we call them flatterers of the fortunate, rather than
helpers of the wretched? Troy was not destroyed, then, because the gods
deserted it. For the demons, always watchful to deceive, did what they
could. For, when all the statues were overthrown and burnt together
with the town, Livy tells us that only the image of Minerva is said to
have been found standing uninjured amidst the ruins of her temple; not
that it might be said in their praise, "The gods who made this realm
divine," but that it might not be said in their defence, They are "gone
from each fane, each sacred shrine:" for that marvel was permitted to
them, not that they might be proved to be powerful, but that they might
be convicted of being present.