[85]
That result was brought about, O
judges, not by human wisdom, nor even by any moderate degree of care on the
part of the immortal gods. In truth, those very holy places themselves which
beheld that monster fall, appear to have been moved themselves, and to have
asserted their rights over him.
I implore you, I call you to witness,—you, I say, O you Alban hills
and groves, and you, O you altars of the Albans, now overthrown, but
nevertheless partners of and equals in honour with the sacred rites of the
Roman people,—you, whom that man with headlong insanity, having
cut down and destroyed the most holy groves, had overwhelmed with his insane
masses of buildings; it was your power then that prevailed, it was the
divinity of your altars, the religious reverence due to you, and which he
had profaned by every sort of wickedness, that prevailed; and you, too, O
sacred Jupiter of Latium, whose lakes and groves and boundaries he had
constantly polluted with every sort of abominable wickedness and debauchery,
you at last from your high and holy mountain, opened your eyes for the
purpose of punishing him; it is to you, to all of you, that those
punishments, late indeed, but still just and well deserved, have been made
an atonement for his wickedness.
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