Chapter 23 I must turn now to recount, as briefly as possible, those misfortunes which were so distressing because they struck so close at home—our uncivilized civil discords, seditions that were, rather, open wars between cities, in which blood was shed in torrents, in which …
Read more →“The City of God: Book 3: Chapters Twenty-Three and Twenty-Four”
Chapter 21 We come now to the period between the Second and the Third and last Punic Wars. In order to keep within the scope of my work, I must pass over many details. It is the period in which Sallust describes the Romans as …
Read more →“The City of God: Book 3: Chapters Twenty-One and Twenty-Two”
Chapter 19 It would take too long for me to recount the deadly and widely extended clashes between the two warring nations. They struggled till the victor almost succumbed with the victim. This is admitted even by those historians whose purpose is to glorify the …
Read more →“The City of God: Book 3: Chapters Nineteen and Twenty”
Chapter 17 When fear had somewhat abated, not because there was respite from wars, but because the people felt their burden less, and when the time had come to an end in which ‘life was regulated by fair and equitable law,’ there followed the events …
Read more →“The City of God: Book 3: Chapters Seventeen and Eighteen”
Chapter 15 How did the kings themselves end their careers? As for Romulus, you can choose between a flattering fable that he was received by the gods into heaven, or you can take the word of the Roman writers who relate that, when he was …
Read more →“The City of God: Book 3: Chapters Fifteen and Sixteen”
Chapter 13 How was it that neither Juno who, along with her husband Jupiter, ‘cherished Rome’s lording sons, the nation of the gown’ nor Venus herself, was able to help the descendants of Venus’ son, Aeneas, to be worthy of decent and honorable marriages? Was …
Read more →“The City of God: Book 3: Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen”
Chapter 11 It was because the god was helpless that, as the fables tell us, the statue of Apollo at Cumae shed tears for four days while the Romans were waging war against the Achaeans and King Aristonicus. Shocked by the prodigy, the soothsayers were …
Read more →“The City of God: Book 3: Chapters Eleven and Twelve”
Chapter 9 It is also a matter of common belief that the gods gave their aid to Numa Pompilius, Romulus’ successor. The result was that, during his entire reign, peace reigned with him, and the gates of the Temple of Janus, ordinarily open in time …
Chapter 7 In the first fury of the civil wars, what wrong had Troy committed to deserve a destruction at the hands of Fimbria, the worst scoundrel on Marius’ side, more savage and cruel than that formerly wrought by the Greeks? In the earlier calamity, …
Read more →“The City of God: Book 3: Chapters Seven and Eight”
Chapter 5 We may pass over without discussion the question whether Venus could possibly have borne Aeneas as a result of her liaison with Anchises, or whether Mars could have begotten Romulus from his intimacy with Numitor’s daughter. A very similar question arises even in …
