[91]
For no one had any power of summoning an
assembly, or of convening any public council. Men were not carried away by any desire for
renown, because where there are no honours publicly conferred, there there can be no covetous
desire of reputation. They were not quarreling with one another out of rivalry or out of
ambition; for they had nothing left to quarrel about,—they had nothing which they
could seek for in opposition to one another,—they had no room for dissensions.
Therefore, it was in accordance with a deliberate system, and with real wisdom, that our
ancestors changed the natural arrogance and intolerable ferocity of the Campanians into a
thoroughly inactive and lazy tranquillity. And by this means they avoided the reproach of
cruelty, because they did not destroy from off the face of Italy a most beautiful city; and they provided well for the
future, in that, having cut out all the sinews of the city, they left the city itself
enfeebled and disabled.
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