The City of God, Volume I by Saint of Hippo Augustine
12. _By what virtues the ancient Romans merited that the true God,
2233 words | Chapter 156
although they did not worship Him, should enlarge their empire._
Wherefore let us go on to consider what virtues of the Romans they
were which the true God, in whose power are also the kingdoms of the
earth, condescended to help in order to raise the empire, and also
for what reason He did so. And, in order to discuss this question on
clearer ground, we have written the former books, to show that the
power of those gods, who, they thought, were to be worshipped with
such trifling and silly rites, had nothing to do in this matter; and
also what we have already accomplished of the present volume, to
refute the doctrine of fate, lest any one who might have been already
persuaded that the Roman empire was not extended and preserved by
the worship of these gods, might still be attributing its extension
and preservation to some kind of fate, rather than to the most
powerful will of God most high. The ancient and primitive Romans,
therefore, though their history shows us that, like all the other
nations, with the sole exception of the Hebrews, they worshipped
false gods, and sacrificed victims, not to God, but to demons, have
nevertheless this commendation bestowed on them by their historian,
that they were "greedy of praise, prodigal of wealth, desirous of
great glory, and content with a moderate fortune."[193] Glory they
most ardently loved: for it they wished to live, for it they did not
hesitate to die. Every other desire was repressed by the strength of
their passion for that one thing. At length their country itself,
because it seemed inglorious to serve, but glorious to rule and to
command, they first earnestly desired to be free, and then to be
mistress. Hence it was that, not enduring the domination of kings,
they put the government into the hands of two chiefs, holding office
for a year, who were called consuls, not kings or lords.[194] But
royal pomp seemed inconsistent with the administration of a ruler
(_regentis_), or the benevolence of one who consults (that is, for
the public good) (_consulentis_), but rather with the haughtiness of
a lord (_dominantis_). King Tarquin, therefore, having been banished,
and the consular government having been instituted, it followed, as
the same author already alluded to says in his praises of the Romans,
that "the state grew with amazing rapidity after it had obtained
liberty, so great a desire of glory had taken possession of it."
That eagerness for praise and desire of glory, then, was that which
accomplished those many wonderful things, laudable, doubtless, and
glorious according to human judgment. The same Sallust praises the
great men of his own time, Marcus Cato, and Caius Cæsar, saying that
for a long time the republic had no one great in virtue, but that
within his memory there had been these two men of eminent virtue, and
very different pursuits. Now, among the praises which he pronounces
on Cæsar he put this, that he wished for a great empire, an army,
and a new war, that he might have a sphere where his genius and
virtue might shine forth. Thus it was ever the prayer of men of
heroic character that Bellona would excite miserable nations to war,
and lash them into agitation with her bloody scourge, so that there
might be occasion for the display of their valour. This, forsooth, is
what that desire of praise and thirst for glory did. Wherefore, by
the love of liberty in the first place, afterwards also by that of
domination and through the desire of praise and glory, they achieved
many great things; and their most eminent poet testifies to their
having been prompted by all these motives:
"Porsenna there, with pride elate,
Bids Rome to Tarquin ope her gate;
With arms he hems the city in,
Æneas' sons stand firm to win."[195]
At that time it was their greatest ambition either to die bravely
or to live free; but when liberty was obtained, so great a desire
of glory took possession of them, that liberty alone was not enough
unless domination also should be sought, their great ambition being
that which the same poet puts into the mouth of Jupiter:
"Nay, Juno's self, whose wild alarms
Set ocean, earth, and heaven in arms,
Shall change for smiles her moody frown,
And vie with me in zeal to crown
Rome's sons, the nation of the gown.
So stands my will. There comes a day,
While Rome's great ages hold their way,
When old Assaracus's sons
Shall quit them on the myrmidons,
O'er Phthia and Mycenæ reign,
And humble Argos to their chain."[196]
Which things, indeed, Virgil makes Jupiter predict as future, whilst,
in reality, he was only himself passing in review in his own mind
things which were already done, and which were beheld by him as
present realities. But I have mentioned them with the intention
of showing that, next to liberty, the Romans so highly esteemed
domination, that it received a place among those things on which
they bestowed the greatest praise. Hence also it is that that poet,
preferring to the arts of other nations those arts which peculiarly
belong to the Romans, namely, the arts of ruling and commanding, and
of subjugating and vanquishing nations, says,
"Others, belike, with happier grace,
From bronze or stone shall call the face,
Plead doubtful causes, map the skies,
And tell when planets set or rise;
But Roman thou, do thou control
The nations far and wide;
Be this thy genius, to impose
The rule of peace on vanquished foes,
Show pity to the humbled soul,
And crush the sons of pride."[197]
These arts they exercised with the more skill the less they gave
themselves up to pleasures, and to enervation of body and mind in
coveting and amassing riches, and through these corrupting morals, by
extorting them from the miserable citizens and lavishing them on base
stage-players. Hence these men of base character, who abounded when
Sallust wrote and Virgil sang these things, did not seek after honours
and glory by these arts, but by treachery and deceit. Wherefore the
same says, "But at first it was rather ambition than avarice that
stirred the minds of men, which vice, however, is nearer to virtue. For
glory, honour, and power are desired alike by the good man and by the
ignoble; but the former," he says, "strives onward to them by the true
way, whilst the other, knowing nothing of the good arts, seeks them by
fraud and deceit."[198] And what is meant by seeking the attainment
of glory, honour, and power by good arts, is to seek them by virtue,
and not by deceitful intrigue; for the good and the ignoble man alike
desire these things, but the good man strives to overtake them by the
true way. The way is virtue, along which he presses as to the goal of
possession--namely, to glory, honour, and power. Now that this was a
sentiment engrained in the Roman mind, is indicated even by the temples
of their gods; for they built in very close proximity the temples of
Virtue and Honour, worshipping as gods the gifts of God. Hence we can
understand what they who were good thought to be the end of virtue,
and to what they ultimately referred it, namely, to honour; for, as to
the bad, they had no virtue though they desired honour, and strove to
possess it by fraud and deceit. Praise of a higher kind is bestowed
upon Cato, for he says of him, "The less he sought glory, the more it
followed him."[199] We say praise of a higher kind; for the glory with
the desire of which the Romans burned is the judgment of men thinking
well of men. And therefore virtue is better, which is content with no
human judgment save that of one's own conscience. Whence the apostle
says, "For this is our glory, the testimony of our conscience."[200]
And in another place he says, "But let every one prove his own work,
and then he shall have glory in himself, and not in another."[201] That
glory, honour, and power, therefore, which they desired for themselves,
and to which the good sought to attain by good arts, should not be
sought after by virtue, but virtue by them. For there is no true virtue
except that which is directed towards that end in which is the highest
and ultimate good of man. Wherefore even the honours which Cato sought
he ought not to have sought, but the state ought to have conferred them
on him unsolicited, on account of his virtues.
But, of the two great Romans of that time, Cato was he whose virtue
was by far the nearest to the true idea of virtue. Wherefore, let
us refer to the opinion of Cato himself, to discover what was the
judgment he had formed concerning the condition of the state both
then and in former times. "I do not think," he says, "that it was by
arms that our ancestors made the republic great from being small.
Had that been the case, the republic of our day would have been by
far more flourishing than that of their times, for the number of
our allies and citizens is far greater; and, besides, we possess a
far greater abundance of armour and of horses than they did. But it
was other things than these that made them great, and we have none
of them: industry at home, just government without, a mind free in
deliberation, addicted neither to crime nor to lust. Instead of
these, we have luxury and avarice, poverty in the state, opulence
among citizens; we laud riches, we follow laziness; there is no
difference made between the good and the bad; all the rewards of
virtue are got possession of by intrigue. And no wonder, when every
individual consults only for his own good, when ye are the slaves of
pleasure at home, and, in public affairs, of money and favour, no
wonder that an onslaught is made upon the unprotected republic."[202]
He who hears these words of Cato or of Sallust probably thinks that
such praise bestowed on the ancient Romans was applicable to all of
them, or, at least, to very many of them. It is not so; otherwise
the things which Cato himself writes, and which I have quoted in
the second book of this work, would not be true. In that passage he
says, that even from the very beginning of the state wrongs were
committed by the more powerful, which led to the separation of the
people from the fathers, besides which there were other internal
dissensions; and the only time at which there existed a just and
moderate administration was after the banishment of the kings, and
that no longer than whilst they had cause to be afraid of Tarquin,
and were carrying on the grievous war which had been undertaken on
his account against Etruria; but afterwards the fathers oppressed the
people as slaves, flogged them as the kings had done, drove them from
their land, and, to the exclusion of all others, held the government
in their own hands alone. And to these discords, whilst the fathers
were wishing to rule, and the people were unwilling to serve, the
second Punic war put an end; for again great fear began to press upon
their disquieted minds, holding them back from those distractions by
another and greater anxiety, and bringing them back to civil concord.
But the great things which were then achieved were accomplished
through the administration of a few men, who were good in their own
way. And by the wisdom and forethought of these few good men, which
first enabled the republic to endure these evils and mitigated them,
it waxed greater and greater. And this the same historian affirms,
when he says that, reading and hearing of the many illustrious
achievements of the Roman people in peace and in war, by land and by
sea, he wished to understand what it was by which these great things
were specially sustained. For he knew that very often the Romans had
with a small company contended with great legions of the enemy; and
he knew also that with small resources they had carried on wars with
opulent kings. And he says that, after having given the matter much
consideration, it seemed evident to him that the pre-eminent virtue
of a few citizens had achieved the whole, and that that explained
how poverty overcame wealth, and small numbers great multitudes.
But, he adds, after that the state had been corrupted by luxury and
indolence, again the republic, by its own greatness, was able to bear
the vices of its magistrates and generals. Wherefore even the praises
of Cato are only applicable to a few; for only a few were possessed
of that virtue which leads men to pursue after glory, honour, and
power by the true way,--that is, by virtue itself. This industry at
home, of which Cato speaks, was the consequence of a desire to enrich
the public treasury, even though the result should be poverty at
home; and therefore, when he speaks of the evil arising out of the
corruption of morals, he reverses the expression, and says, "Poverty
in the state, riches at home."
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