previous next
[86] As a result of this party spirit bitter strife arose at Athens,1 and in our own country not only dissensions2 but also disastrous civil wars3 broke out. [p. 89] All this the citizen who is patriotic, brave, and worthy of a leading place in the state will shun with abhorrence; he will dedicate himself unreservedly to his country, without aiming at influence or power for himself; and he will devote himself to the state in its entirety in such a way as to further the interests of all. Besides, he will not expose anyone to hatred or disrepute by groundless charges, but he will surely cleave to justice and honour so closely that he will submit to any loss, however heavy, rather than be untrue to them, and will face death itself rather than renounce them.

1 From the death of Pericles on.

2 Such as the conspiracy of Catiline.

3 The civil wars of Marius and Sulla, Caesar and Pompey.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Introduction (Walter Miller, 1913)
load focus Latin (Walter Miller, 1913)
hide References (2 total)
  • Cross-references in indexes to this page (2):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: