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29In this way, when men begin sedition and seek ever to repay violence with violence and inflict vengeance without regard to decency or humanity, but according to their desires and the power that arms give them, there necessarily occurs each time a kind of cycle of ills, and alternate requitals of outrages take place. 2For the fortunate side abounds in insolence and sets no limit to its greed, and the defeated side, if it does not perish immediately, rages at its misfortune and is eager to take vengeance on the oppressor, until it sates its wrath. 3And the remaining multitude, also, even though it has not taken sides, now through pity for the vanquished and envy of the victorious side coöperates with the oppressed, fearing that it may itself suffer the same evils as the one party, and hoping also that it may cause the same evils as the other. 4Thus the citizens who have remained neutral are brought into the dispute, and one class after another, on the pretext of avenging the side which is for the moment at a disadvantage, takes up the sorry business of reprisals as if it were a legitimate, everyday affair; and while individually they escape, they ruin the state in every way.
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