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30Or do you not see how much time we have wasted in fighting one another, how many great evils we have meanwhile endured, and, what is worse than this, inflicted? 2And who could count the vast amount of money of which we have stripped our allies and robbed the gods and moreover have even contributed ourselves from what we did not possess, only to expend it against one another? 3Or who could number the multitude of men who have been lost, not only of ordinary persons (for that is beyond computation) but of knights and senators, each one of whom was able in foreign wars to preserve the whole city by his life or by his death? 4How many Curtii, how many Decii, Fabii, Gracchi, Marcelli, and Scipios have been killed? And not, by Jupiter, to repel Samnites or Latins or Spaniards or Carthaginians, but [to kill citizens(?)] and to perish also themselves. 5As for those who have died under arms, no matter how much we may mourn their loss, yet there is less reason to lament in their case. For they entered their battles as volunteers (if it is proper to call by the name of volunteers men compelled by fear), and they met a death which, even if uncalled for, was at least a brave one; in an equal struggle and in the hope that they might really survive and conquer they fell without suffering. 6But how can one mourn as they deserve those who have perished miserably in their homes, in the streets, in the Forum, in the very senate-chamber, on the very Capitol, all by violence—not only men, but women, too, not only those in their prime, but also old men and children? 7And yet, while subjecting one another to so many and so terrible reprisals as all our enemies put together never inflicted upon us nor we upon them, so far from loathing such acts and manfully wishing to have done with them, we even rejoice and hold festivals and term those who are guilty of them benefactors. 8Verily, I do not regard this life that we have been leading as human; it is rather that of wild beasts which are destroyed by one another.
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