11 At first, however,
it was ambition, rather than avarice, that influenced the minds of men; a vice
which approaches nearer to virtue than the other. For of glory, honor, and
power, the worthy is as desirous as the worthless; but the one pursues them by
just methods; the other, being destitute of honorable qualities, works with
fraud and deceit. But avarice has merely money for its object, which no wise
man has ever immoderately desired. It is a vice which, as if imbued with deadly
poison, enervates whatever is manly in body or mind. It is always unbounded and
insatiable, and is abated neither by abundance nor by want.
But after Lucius Sylla, having recovered the government by force of arms,
proceeded, after a fair commencement, to a pernicious termination, all became
robbers and plunderers; some set their affections on houses, others on lands;
his victorious troops knew neither restraint nor moderation, but inflicted on
the citizens disgraceful and inhuman outrages. Their rapacity was increased by
the circumstance that Sylla, in order to secure the attachment of the forces
which he had commanded in Asia, had treated them, contrary to the practice of
our ancestors, with extraordinary indulgence, and exemption from discipline;
and pleasant and luxurious quarters had easily, during seasons of idleness,
enervated the minds of the soldiery. Then the armies of the Roman people first
became habituated to licentiousness and intemperance, and began to admire
statues, pictures, and sculptured vases; to seize such objects alike in public
edifices and private dwellings; to spoil temples; and to cast off respect for everything,
sacred and profane. Such troops, accordingly, when once they obtained the
mastery, left nothing to the vanquished. Success unsettles the principles even
of the wise, and scarcely would those of debauched habits use victory with
moderation.
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