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The City of God

Chapter 18.--The Disasters Suffered by the Romans in the Punic Wars, Which Were Not Mitigated by the Protection of the Gods.

In the Punic wars, again, when victory hung so long in the balance between the two kingdoms, when two powerful nations were straining every nerve and using all their resources against one another, how many smaller kingdoms were crushed, how many large and flourishing cities were demolished, how many states were overwhelmed and ruined, how many districts and lands far and near were desolated! How often were the victors on either side vanquished! What multitudes of men, both of those actually in arms and of others, were destroyed! What huge navies, too, were crippled in engagements, or were sunk by every kind of marine disaster! Were we to attempt to recount or mention these calamities, we should become writers of history. At that period Rome was mightily perturbed, and resorted to vain and ludicrous expedients. On the authority of the Sibylline books, the secular games were re-appointed, which had been inaugurated a century before, but had faded into oblivion in happier times. The games consecrated to the infernal gods were also renewed by the pontiffs; for they, too, had sunk into disuse in the better times. And no wonder; for when they were renewed, the great abundance of dying men made all hell rejoice at its riches, and give itself up to sport: for certainly the ferocious wars, and disastrous quarrels, and bloody victories--now on one side, and now on the other--though most calamitous to men, afforded great sport and a rich banquet to the devils. But in the first Punic war there was no more disastrous event than the Roman defeat in which Regulus was taken. We made mention of him in the two former books as an incontestably great man, who had before conquered and subdued the Carthaginians, and who would have put an end to the first Punic war, had not an inordinate appetite for praise and glory prompted him to impose on the worn-out Carthagians harder conditions than they could bear. If the unlooked-for captivity and unseemly bondage of this man, his fidelity to his oath, and his surpassingly cruel death, do not bring a blush to the face of the gods, it is true that they are brazen and bloodless.

Nor were there wanting at that time very heavy disasters within the city itself. For the Tiber was extraordinarily flooded, and destroyed almost all the lower parts of the city; some buildings being carried away by the violence of the torrent, while others were soaked to rottenness by the water that stood round them even after the flood was gone. This visitation was followed by a fire which was still more destructive, for it consumed some of the loftier buildings round the Forum, and spared not even its own proper temple, that of Vesta, in which virgins chosen for this honor, or rather for this punishment, had been employed in conferring, as it were, everlasting life on fire, by ceaselessly feeding it with fresh fuel. But at the time we speak of, the fire in the temple was not content with being kept alive: it raged. And when the virgins, scared by its vehemence, were unable to save those fatal images which had already brought destruction on three cities ¹ in which they had been received, Metellus the priest, forgetful of his own safety, rushed in and res cued the sacred things, though he was half roasted in doing so. For either the fire did not recognize even him, or else the goddess of fire was there,--a goddess who would not have fled from the fire supposing she had been there. But here you see how a man could be of greater service to Vesta than she could be to him. Now if these gods could not avert the fire from themselves, what help against flames or flood could they bring to the state of which they were the reputed guardians? Facts have shown that they were useless. These objections of ours would be idle if our adversaries maintained that their idols are consecrated rather as symbols of things eternal, than to secure the blessings of time; and that thus, though the symbols, like all material and visible things, might perish, no damage thereby resulted to the things for the sake of which they had been consecrated, while, as for the images themselves, they could be renewed again for the same purposes they had formerly served. But with lamentable blindness, they suppose that, through the intervention of perishable gods, the earthly well-being and temporal prosperity of the state can be preserved from perishing. And so, when they are reminded that even when the gods remained among them this well-being and prosperity were blighted, they blush to change the opinion they are unable to defend.

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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XVIII: Quantae clades Romanos sub bellis Punicis triuerint frustra deorum praesidiis expetitis.

Iam uero Punicis bellis, cum inter utrumque imperium uictoria diu anceps atque incerta penderet populique duo praeualidi impetus in alterutrum fortissimos et opulentissimos agerent, quot minutiora regna contrita sunt. quae urbes amplae nobilesque deletae, quot adflictae, quot perditae ciuitates. quam longe lateque tot regiones terraeque uastatae sunt. quotiens uicti hinc atque inde uictores. quid hominum consumptum est uel pugnantium militum uel ab armis uacantium populorum. quanta uis nauium marinis etiam proeliis obpressa et diuersarum tempestatum uarietate submersa est. si enarrare uel commemorare conemur, nihil aliud quam scriptores etiam nos erimus historiae. tunc magno metu perturbata Romana ciuitas ad remedia uana et ridenda currebat. instaurati sunt ex auctoritate librorum Sibyllinorum ludi saeculares, quorum celebritas inter centum annos fuerat instituta felicioribusque temporibus memoria neglegente perierat. renouarunt etiam pontifices ludos sacros inferis et ipsos abolitos annis retrorsum melioribus. nimirum ergo, quando renouati sunt, tanta copia morientium ditatos inferos etiam ludere delectabat, cum profecto miseri homines ipsa rabida bella et cruentas animositates funereasque hinc atque inde uictorias magnos agerent ludos daemonum et opimas epulas inferorum. nihil sane miserabilius primo Punico bello accidit, quam quod ita Romani uicti sunt, ut etiam Regulus ille caperetur, cuius in primo et in altero libro fecimus mentionem, uir plane magnus et uictor antea domitorque Poenorum, qui etiam ipsum primum bellum Punicum confecisset, nisi auiditate nimia laudis et gloriae duriores condiciones, quam ferre possent, fessis Carthaginiensibus imperasset. illius uiri et captiuitas inopinatissima et seruitus indignissima, et iuratio fidelissima et mors crudelissima si deos illos non cogit erubescere, uerum est quod aerei sunt et non habent sanguinem. nec mala illo tempore grauissima intra moenia defuerunt. nam exundante nimis ultra morem fluuio Tiberino paene omnia urbis plana subuersa sunt, aliis impetu quasi torrentis inpulsis, aliis uelut stagno diuturno madefactis atque sublapsis. istam deinde pestem ignis perniciosior subsecutus est, qui correptis circa forum quibusque celsioribus etiam templo Vestae suo familiarissimo non pepercit, ubi ei ueluti uitam perpetuam diligentissima substitutione lignorum non tam honoratae quam damnatae uirgines donare consuerant. tunc uero illic ignis non tantum uiuebat, sed etiam saeuiebat. cuius impetu exterritae uirgines sacra illa fatalia, quae iam tres, in quibus fuerant, presserant ciuitates, cum ab illo incendio liberare non possent, Metellus pontifex suae quodammodo salutis oblitus inruens ea semiustus abripuit. neque enim uel ipsum ignis agnouit, aut uero erat ibi numen, quod non etiam, si fuisset, fugisset. homo igitur potius sacris Vestae quam illa homini prodesse potuerunt. si autem a se ipsis ignem non repellebant, ciuitatem, cuius salutem tueri putabantur, quid contra illas aquas flammasque poterant adiuuare? sicut etiam res ipsa nihil ea prorsus potuisse patefecit. haec istis nequaquam obicerentur a nobis, si illa sacra dicerent non tuendis his bonis temporalibus instituta, sed significandis aeternis, et ideo, cum ea, quod corporalia uisibiliaque essent, perire contingeret, nihil his rebus minui, propter quas fuerant instituta, et posse ad eosdem usus denuo reparari. nunc uero caecitate mirabili eis sacris, quae perire possent, fieri potuisse existimant, ut salus terrena et temporalis felicitas ciuitatis perire non posset. proinde cum illis etiam manentibus sacris uel salutis contritio uel infelicitas inruisse monstratur, mutare sententiam, quam defendere nequeunt, erubescunt.