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16“Witness to the truth of my words is borne by our past. For while we were but few in number and differed in no important respect from our neighbours, we got along well with our government and subjugated almost all Italy; 2but ever since we were led outside the peninsula and crossed over to many continents and many islands, filling the whole sea and the whole earth with our name and power, nothing good has been our lot. At first it was only at home and within our walls that we broke up into factions and quarrelled, but afterwards we even carried this plague out into the legions. 3Therefore our city, like a great merchantman manned with a crew of every race and lacking a pilot, has now for many generations been rolling and plunging as it has drifted this way and that in a heavy sea, a ship as it were without ballast. Do not, then, allow her to be longer exposed to the tempest; 4for you see that she is waterlogged. And do not let her be pounded to pieces upon a reef; for her timbers are rotten and she will not be able to hold out much longer. But since the gods have taken pity on her and have set you over her as her arbiter and overseer, prove not false to her, to the end that, even as now she has revived a little by your aid, so she may survive in safety for the ages to come.
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