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5Yet, if one were to name over all the worst crimes, the others are as naught in comparison with this one you are now committing, whether you consider them crime for crime or even set all of them together over against this single crime of yours. 2For you are committing murder in not begetting in the first place those who ought to be your descendants; you are committing sacrilege in putting an end to the names and honours of your ancestors; and you are guilty of impiety in that you are abolishing your families, which were instituted by the gods, and destroying the greatest of offerings to them,—human life,—thus overthrowing their rites and their temples. 3Moreover, you are destroying the State by disobeying its laws, and you are betraying your country by rendering her barren and childless; nay more, you are laying her even with the dust by making her destitute of future inhabitants. For it is human beings that constitute a city, we are told, not houses or porticos or market-places empty of men.
4“Bethink you, therefore, what wrath would justly seize the great Romulus, the founder of our race, if he could reflect on the circumstances of his own birth and then upon your conduct in refusing to beget children even by lawful marriages ! 5How wrathful would the Romans who were his followers be, if they could realize that after they themselves had even seized foreign girls, you are not satisfied even with those of your own race, and after they had got children even by enemy wives, you will not beget them even of women who are citizens! How angry would Curtius be, who was willing to die that the married men might not be bereft of their wives! How indignant Hersilia, who attended her daughter at her wedding and instituted for us all the rites of marriage ! 6Nay, our fathers even fought the Sabines to obtain brides and made peace through the intercession of their wives and children; they administered oaths and made sundry treaties for this very purpose; but you are bringing all their efforts to naught. 7And why? Do you desire to live apart from women always, even as the Vestal Virgins live apart from men? Then you should also be punished as they are if you are guilty of any lewdness.
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