{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>This vice of restless ambition was the sole motive to that\r\nsocial and parricidal war,—a vice which Sallust brands in\r\npassing; for when he has spoken with brief but hearty commendation\r\nof those primitive times in which life was spent\r\nwithout covetousness, and every one was sufficiently satisfied\r\nwith what he had, he goes on: \"But after Cyrus in Asia, and\r\nthe Lacedemonians and Athenians in Greece, began to subdue\r\ncities and nations, and to account the lust of sovereignty a\r\nsufficient ground for war, and to reckon that the greatest glory<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_107\">[Pg 107]</a></span>\r\nconsisted in the greatest empire;\"<a id=\"FNanchor_139_139\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_139_139\">[139]</a> and so on, as I need not now\r\nquote. This lust of sovereignty disturbs and consumes the\r\nhuman race with frightful ills. By this lust Rome was overcome\r\nwhen she triumphed over Alba, and praising her own\r\ncrime, called it glory. For, as our Scriptures say, \"the wicked\r\nboasteth of his heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom\r\nthe Lord abhorreth.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_140_140\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_140_140\">[140]</a> Away, then, with these deceitful masks,\r\nthese deluding whitewashes, that things may be truthfully seen\r\nand scrutinized. Let no man tell me that this and the other\r\nwas a \"great\" man, because he fought and conquered so and\r\nso. Gladiators fight and conquer, and this barbarism has its\r\nmeed of praise; but I think it were better to take the consequences\r\nof any sloth, than to seek the glory won by such\r\narms. And if two gladiators entered the arena to fight, one\r\nbeing father, the other his son, who would endure such a spectacle?\r\nwho would not be revolted by it? How, then, could\r\nthat be a glorious war which a daughter-state waged against\r\nits mother? Or did it constitute a difference, that the battlefield\r\nwas not an arena, and that the wide plains were filled\r\nwith the carcases not of two gladiators, but of many of the\r\nflower of two nations; and that those contests were viewed not\r\nby the amphitheatre, but by the whole world, and furnished a\r\nprofane spectacle both to those alive at the time, and to their\r\nposterity, so long as the fame of it is handed down?</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK THIRD.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-225"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"8e87c59d447039623dfd1720656455138b5441845a45f4c1ff0216d3da1915b8","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_139_139","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_139_139","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_139_139\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_139_139\"><span class=\"label\">[139]</span></a> Sallust, <i>Cat. Conj.</i> ii.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_139_139","text_sha256":"5f0a3a92b2a88ddf0682a291790edcf8064cf753a4f025ddc8587957b2688763","verified":false,"work_id":null}