{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>Why, then, need our argument take note of the many\r\nnations who have waged wars with one another, and have\r\nnowhere spared the conquered in the temples of their gods?\r\nLet us look at the practice of the Romans themselves: let us,\r\nI say, recall and review the Romans, whose chief praise it has\r\nbeen \"to spare the vanquished and subdue the proud,\" and\r\nthat they preferred \"rather to forgive than to revenge an injury;\"<a id=\"FNanchor_41_41\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_41_41\">[41]</a>\r\nand among so many and great cities which they have\r\nstormed, taken, and overthrown for the extension of their\r\ndominion, let us be told what temples they were accustomed\r\nto exempt, so that whoever took refuge in them was free. Or\r\nhave they really done this, and has the fact been suppressed\r\nby the historians of these events? Is it to be believed,\r\nthat men who sought out with the greatest eagerness points\r\nthey could praise, would omit those which, in their own\r\nestimation, are the most signal proofs of piety? Marcus\r\nMarcellus, a distinguished Roman, who took Syracuse, a most\r\nsplendidly adorned city, is reported to have bewailed its\r\ncoming ruin, and to have shed his own tears over it\r\nbefore he spilt its blood. He took steps also to preserve\r\nthe chastity even of his enemy. For before he gave orders\r\nfor the storming of the city, he issued an edict forbidding the\r\nviolation of any free person. Yet the city was sacked according\r\nto the custom of war; nor do we anywhere read, that even\r\nby so chaste and gentle a commander orders were given that\r\nno one should be injured who had fled to this or that temple.<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_9\">[Pg 9]</a></span>\r\nAnd this certainly would by no means have been omitted,\r\nwhen neither his weeping nor his edict preservative of chastity\r\ncould be passed in silence. Fabius, the conqueror of the city\r\nof Tarentum, is praised for abstaining from making booty of\r\nthe images. For when his secretary proposed the question to\r\nhim, what he wished done with the statues of the gods, which\r\nhad been taken in large numbers, he veiled his moderation\r\nunder a joke. For he asked of what sort they were; and when\r\nthey reported to him that there were not only many large\r\nimages, but some of them armed, \"Oh,\" says he, \"let us leave\r\nwith the Tarentines their angry gods.\" Seeing, then, that the\r\nwriters of Roman history could not pass in silence, neither the\r\nweeping of the one general nor the laughing of the other,\r\nneither the chaste pity of the one nor the facetious moderation\r\nof the other, on what occasion would it be omitted, if, for\r\nthe honour of any of their enemy's gods, they had shown this\r\nparticular form of leniency, that in any temple slaughter or\r\ncaptivity was prohibited?</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK FIRST."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-38"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"9d49f4c8dbc5c063975be5d5c4f657b3d5667c09b0a33a9fde11ac1a48a23fae","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_41_41","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_41_41","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_41_41\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_41_41\"><span class=\"label\">[41]</span></a> Sallust, <i>Cat. Conj.</i> ix.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_41_41","text_sha256":"05a539ede4b3b571c4cc2a132b5d691d4ff53c804322f883ff9c0db5fb07fae0","verified":false,"work_id":null}