Testimonia

{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>But possibly we are to find the reason for this neglect of\r\nthe Romans by their gods, in the saying of Sallust, that\r\n\"equity and virtue prevailed among the Romans not more by\r\nforce of laws than of nature.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_107_107\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_107_107\">[107]</a> I presume it is to this inborn\r\nequity and goodness of disposition we are to ascribe the rape\r\nof the Sabine women. What, indeed, could be more equitable\r\nand virtuous, than to carry off by force, as each man was\r\nfit, and without their parents' consent, girls who were strangers\r\nand guests, and who had been decoyed and entrapped by the\r\npretence of a spectacle! If the Sabines were wrong to deny\r\ntheir daughters when the Romans asked for them, was it not\r\na greater wrong in the Romans to carry them off after that\r\ndenial? The Romans might more justly have waged war\r\nagainst the neighbouring nation for having refused their\r\ndaughters in marriage when they first sought them, than for\r\nhaving demanded them back when they had stolen them.\r\nWar should have been proclaimed at first: it was then that\r\nMars should have helped his warlike son, that he might by\r\nforce of arms avenge the injury done him by the refusal of\r\nmarriage, and might also thus win the women he desired.\r\nThere might have been some appearance of \"right of war\" in\r\na victor carrying off, in virtue of this right, the virgins who<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_68\">[Pg 68]</a></span>\r\nhad been without any show of right denied him; whereas\r\nthere was no \"right of peace\" entitling him to carry off those\r\nwho were not given to him, and to wage an unjust war with\r\ntheir justly enraged parents. One happy circumstance was\r\nindeed connected with this act of violence, viz., that though\r\nit was commemorated by the games of the circus, yet even\r\nthis did not constitute it a precedent in the city or realm of\r\nRome. If one would find fault with the results of this act, it\r\nmust rather be on the ground that the Romans made Romulus\r\na god in spite of his perpetrating this iniquity; for one cannot\r\nreproach them with making this deed any kind of precedent\r\nfor the rape of women.</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK SECOND.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-151"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"6f3486cea34b468da6bc2140631b72c07f9306dd266b20de5b62bfaf088c298c","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume I","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Book IV)","J. J. Smith (Books V-VIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":[],"id":"pg45304-Footnote_107_107","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_107_107","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_107_107\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_107_107\"><span class=\"label\">[107]</span></a> Sallust, <i>Cat. Con.</i> ix. Compare the similar saying of Tacitus regarding\r\nthe chastity of the Germans: \"Plusque ibi boni mores valent, quam alibi bonæ\r\nleges\" (<i>Germ.</i> xix.).</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_107_107","text_sha256":"a9977b9a9495693ffd66827574f92d2b7dd31b96468df54a1e1766494ff4a9e5","verified":false,"work_id":null}

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