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The City of God

Chapter 23.--Of the Internal Disasters Which Vexed the Roman Republic, and Followed a Portentous Madness Which Seized All the Domestic Animals.

But let us now mention, as succinctly as possible, those disasters which were still more vexing, because nearer home; I mean those discords which are erroneously called civil, since they destroy civil interests. The seditions had now become urban wars, in which blood was freely shed, and in which parties raged against one another, not with wrangling and verbal contention, but with physical force and arms. What a sea of Roman blood was shed, what desolations and devastations were occasioned in Italy by wars social, wars servile, wars civil! Before the Latins began the social war against Rome, all the animals used in the service of man--dogs, horses, asses, oxen, and all the rest that are subject to man--suddenly grew wild, and forgot their domesticated tameness, forsook their stalls and wandered at large, and could not be closely approached either by strangers or their own masters without danger. If this was a portent, how serious a calamity must have been portended by a plague which, whether portent or no, was in itself a serious calamity! Had it happened in our day, the heathen would have been more rabid against us than their animals were against them.

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La cité de dieu

CHAPITRE XXIII.

DES MAUX INTÉRIEURS QUI AFFLIGÈRENT LA RÉPUBLIQUE ROMAINE A LA SUIVE D’UNE RAGE SOUDAINE DONT FURENT ATTEINTS TOUS LES ANIMAUX DOMESTIQUES.

Rapportons maintenant le plus succinctement possible des maux d’autant plus profonds qu’ils furent plus intérieurs, je veux parler des discordes qu’on a tort d’appeler civiles, puisqu’elles sont mortelles pour la cité. Ce n’étaient plus des séditions, mais de véritables guerres où l’on ne s’amusait pas à répondre à un discours par un autre, mais où l’on repoussait le fer par le fer. Guerres civiles, guerres des alliés, guerres des esclaves, que de sang romain répandu parmi tant de combats! quelle désolation dans l’Italie, chaque jour dépeuplée! On dit qu’avant la guerre des alliés tous les animaux domestiques, chiens, chevaux, ânes, boeufs, devinrent tout à coup tellement farouches qu’ils sortirent de leurs étables et s’enfuirent çà et là, sans que personne pût les approcher autrement qu’au risque de la vie¹. Quel mal ne présageait pas un tel prodige, qui était déjà un grand mal, même s’il n’était pas un présage! Supposez qu’un pareil accident arrivât de nos jours; vous verriez les païens plus enragés contre nous que ne l’étaient contre eux leurs animaux.