| Quotation |
9 At ego iterum ac saepius repeto: num quidnam et hic conparatione aliqua egent tempora ? quis rogo audire non horreat non dicam bella talia, sed uel nomina tanta bellorum, externa, seruilia, socialia, ciuilia, fugitiuorum ? 10 Quae ne sic saltem sese, ut commoti maris fluctus quamuis molibus magnis sequuntur, sed undique diuersis causis uocabulis formis malisque excitata coaceruataque concurrunt. 11 Vt e proximo repetam et infame illud seruile praeteream, Iugurthinum bellum nondum adhuc ab Africo perdetonuerat, iam Cimbricum a circio fulminabat. 12 De Cimbricis illis nubibus adhuc foedi uastique torrentes effusi sanguinis agebantur, iam socialis belli nebulas in magna continuo malorum nubila coituras misera exhalabat Italia. 13 Adhuc uero post infinitam crebramque Italici belli tempestatem discurri tuto per Italiam minime poterat, ita omnes absque illis periculosissimis inimicarum urbium uoraginibus dissoluta ac lubrica pace titubabant; 14 iam sibi Marianum atque Cinnanum Roma parturiebat excidium, aliudque e diuerso oriens atque aquilo, hoc est Mithridaticum, minabatur, quod quidem Mithridaticum a superioribus coeptum porro in ulteriora porrigitur. |
| Translation |
9. I now, once again, return to my habitual question, is there really,
even at this point, a need to compare these times with ours? Who, I ask,
would not shudder to hear not of such wars, but merely of their very names:
wars against foreigners, wars against slaves, wars against allies, wars
against fellow-citizens, wars against fugitives? 10. Nor do they follow on
from one another, huge though they are, like the waves of a stormy sea,
but roused and piled up by differing causes, pretexts, natures, and evils,
they rush together from all sides at once. 11. To sum up what I have just
discussed, and omitting the shameful war against slaves, the thunder from
the Jugurthine War in Africa had not yet ceased, when the Cimbrian War
descended like lightning from the north-west. 12. While the storm clouds of
the Cimbrian War were still raining down great, foul torrents of shed blood,
poor Italy breathed forth the fog of the Social War that would soon coalesce
into great clouds of wrong. 13. Even after the endless, frequent storms of the
Italian War, it was not at all possible to travel safely through Italy, where
everyone, quite apart from in the dangerous whirlpools of their enemies’
cities, struggled to keep their footing in the treacherous and slippery peace.
14. And while Rome was giving birth herself to the destruction wrought by
Marius and Cinna, she was menaced by another war, which rose up from
the divers regions of the east and the north: namely the Mithridatic War. For
while the war with Mithridates had begun in an earlier period, it extended
down into later ones. (...) 20. From all this we can say that while at present she suffers vexations
from foreigners, Italy can console herself by thinking of her past troubles,
which were born of her, turned themselves on her, and which tore her to
pieces with incomparable cruelty. |
