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Front Page Titles (by Subject) SECT. VII.: A View of the affecting Horrors, and Calamities, produced by Civil War; taken from the History of Greece. - The Works of Sallust (Gordon's Discourses, Cicero's Orations against Catiline)
SECT. VII.: A View of the affecting Horrors, and Calamities, produced by Civil War; taken from the History of Greece. - Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust), The Works of Sallust (Gordon’s Discourses, Cicero’s Orations against Catiline) [1744]Edition used:The Works of Sallust, translated into English with Political Discourses upon that Author. To which is added, a translation of Cicero’s Four Orations against Catiline (London: R. Ware, 1744).
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- To His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland.
- Introduction.
- Postscript.
- Political Discourses Upon Sallust.
- Discourse I.: Of Faction and Parties.
- Sect. I.: How Easily the People Are Led Into Faction, and Kept In It, By Their Own Heat and Prejudices, and the Arts of Their Leaders; How Hard They Are to Be Cured; and With What Partiality and Injustice Each Side Treats the Other.
- Sect. II.: How Apt Parties Are to Err In the Choice of Their Leaders. How Little They Regard Truth and Morality, When In Competition With Party. the Terrible Consequences of All This; Worthy Men Decried and Persecuted; Worthless and Wicked Men Popular and
- Sect. III.: Party Infers Public Weakness: Its Devilish Spirit, and Sirange Blindness: What Public Ruin It Threatens: the People Rarely Interested In It; Yet How Eager and Obstinate In It, and Bewitched By It.
- Discourse II.: Of Patriots and Parricides.
- Sect. I.: How Virtue and Vice, Public Services, and Public Crimes, May Be Said to Bring Their Own Rewards.
- Sect. II.: A Suffering Patriot More Happy Than a Successful Parricide: Public Oppressors Always Unhappy.
- Sect. III.: Cautions Against the Arts and Encroachments of Ambition. the Character of a Patriot, and That of a Parricide. How Much It Is the Duty, How Much the Interest, of All Governors to Be Patriots.
- Sect. IV.: How Apt the World Is to Be Deceived With Glare and Outside, to Admire Prosperous Iniquity, and to Slight Merit In Disgrace. Public Spirit the Duty of All Men. the Evils and Folly Attending the Want of It.
- Sect. V.: Considerations Upon Two Distinguished Romans, Cato and Cæsar; One In the Interest of His Country, the Other In His Own Interest: With the Fate and Issue of Cæsar’s Ambition, to Himself and His Race.
- Discourse III.: Of the Resignation of Sylla.
- Sect. I.: His Policy In Resigning; His Motives and Encouragement to Resign.
- Sect. II.: What Measures, and Precautions, He Had Taken For His Security, After His Resignation.
- Discourse IV.: Of the Pride and Ill Conduct of the Patricians, After the Expulsion of Kings.
- Sect. I.: The Roman Commonwealth Unequally Balanced. the Kingly Power, Upon the Expulsion of Tarquin, Engrossed, and Imperiously Exercised, By the Patricians. the Ill Policy of This to Themselves, the Injustice of It to the Plebeians.
- Sect. II.: The Plebeians, Long Oppressed, Obtain a Remedy By Force; But a Remedy Dangerous to the State.
- Discourse V.: Of the Institution and Power of the Popular Tribunes.
- Sect. I.: The Blind Confidence of the People In the Tribunes: the Ambition, and Violent Attempts, of Those Popular Leaders.
- Sect. II.: Reflections On the Plausible Professions, and Dangerous Conduct, of the Gracchi. Public Reformations, How Cautiously to Be Attempted.
- Sect. III.: The Boundless Power Assumed By the Tribunes: With What Boldness and Iniquity They Exercise It. the People Still Their Dupes.
- Discourse VI.: Of Public Corruption; Particularly That of the Romans.
- Sect. I.: The Interest of Virtue, and of the Public, Every Man’s Interest.
- Sect. II.: The Fatal Tendency of Public Corruption. the Public Sometimes Served By Encouraging Private Corruption. Other Means of Corruption, Beside That of Money. Corruption Sometimes Practised By Such Who Rail At It; In Some Instances, By Good Men, Who
- Sect. III.: Some Corruptions In the State to Be Borne, Rather Than Removed By the Introduction of Greater.
- Sect. IV.: How Hard to Prevent Corruption, Where the Means of Corruption Are Found.
- Sect. V.: Venal Men, With What Ill Grace They Complain of Any Ill Conduct, Or Corruption, In Him Who Bought Them: People Once Corrupted, How Abandoned to All Corruption.
- Sect. VI.: Amongst a Corrupt People, the Most Debauched and Desperate Leaders Are the Most Popular.
- Sect. VII.: When the People Are Thoroughly Corrupt, All True Sense of Liberty Is Lost. Outrage and Debauchery Then Pass For Liberty, Defiance of Law For Public Spirit, and Incendiaries For Patriots.
- Sect. VIII.: The Swift Progress of Corruption In the Roman Republic. Its Final Triumph In the Dissolution of the State.
- Discourse VII.: Of the Corruption In the Roman Seats of Justice, and the Oppression In the Provinces.
- Sect. I.: Of the Extreme Difficulty In Procuring Justice At Rome, Against Any Considerable Criminal.
- Sect. II.: The Wonderful Guilt and Enormities of Verres In Sicily, Confidently Committed, From Assurance of Impunity. Cicero’ S Character of the Judges: Their Bold and Constant Venality.
- Sect. III.: The Virtue of the Old Romans, In the Administration of Justice, and Government of Provinces. Their Posterity, and Successors, How Unlike Them. the Wise and Righteous Administration of Cicero, With That of the Provincial Governors In China
- Discourse VIII.: Of Civil Wars.
- Sect. I.: Who the First Authors of Civil War: What Inslames It Most, and Why It Is So Hard to Be Checked.
- Sect. II.: The Chief Power In a Civil War, Vested In the Generals, Yet Little Reverenced By the Soldiers. Both Soldiers and People Grow Hardened and Ungovernable.
- Sect. III.: The Shocking Corruption, and Dissolute Manners, Produced By Civil War; With the Dreadful Barbarities and Devastations Attending It.
- Sect. IV.: The Soldiery, In a Civil War, Only Consider Themselves: What Low Instruments and Causes Serve to Begin and Continue It.
- Sect. V.: How Hard to Put an End to a Civil War. the Tendency of One, to Produce More. How It Sharpens the Spirits of Men, Shocks the Civil Constitution, and Produces Tyranny.
- Sect. VI.: The Evils, and Sudden Changes, Brought By Civil War Upon Particular Families, and Upon a Country In General; With the Fierce Discontents, and Animosities, and Ill Morals, Which It Entails.
- Sect. VII.: A View of the Affecting Horrors, and Calamities, Produced By Civil War; Taken From the History of Greece.
- Discourse IX.: To His Grace Archibald, Duke of Argyll. of the Mutability of Government.
- Sect. I.: Why Free Governments Are More Changeable In Their Frame, Than Such As Are Single and Arbitrary.
- Sect. II.: The Danger to Free Government From Popular Maxims, and Popular Men; With the Advantages It Furnishes Against Itself.
- Sect. III.: The Signal Power of Enthusiasm, and Pious Imposture, In Settling, Changing, Or Perpetuating Government.
- Sect. IV.: The Surprising, Despotic, But Pacific Government, Established By the Jesuits, By the Force of Imposture, In Paraguay.
- Sect. V.: The Inevitable Danger of Trusting Ecclesiastical Persons With Any Worldly Power, Or Any Share In Government.
- Sect. VI.: The Profession of the Missionaries Abroad; How Notoriously Insincere, and Contradictory to Their Tenets and Practices At Home.
- Sect. VII.: The Duration of Tyrannical Single Governments, and the Changeable Nature of Such As Are Popular and Free, Further Considered and Illustrated.
- Sect. VIII.: An Inquiry, Which Is the Most Equal and Perfect Government: Our Own Proved to Be So.
- Postscript.
- The Conspiracy of Cataline
- To His Grace Evelyn, Duke of Kingston.
- The First Oration of Cicero Against Catiline. Spoken In the Senate.
- The Second Oration of Cicero Against Catiline. Addressed to the People.
- The Third Oration of Cicero Against Catiline. Addressed to the People.
- The Fourth Oration of Cicero Against Catiline. Spoken In the Senate.
- The War Against Jugurtha.
- To the Right Honourable the Earl of Cholmondeley.
- The War Against Jugurtha.
- The Speech of M. Æmilius Lepidus, the Consul, Against Sylla.
- The Speech of L. Philippus Against Lepidus.
- Pompey ’s Letter to the Senate.
- The Oration of Licinius, the Tribune: Addressed to the People.
- The Letter Which Mithridates, King of Pontus, Sent to Arsaces, King of Parthia.
- The First Epistle of Sallust to Caius Julius CÆsar: Concerning the Regulation of the Commonwealth.
- The Second Epistle of Sallust to Caius Julius CÆsar: Concerning the Regulation of the Commonwealth.
SECT. VII.
A View of the affecting Horrors, and Calamities, produced by Civil War; taken from the History of Greece.
THE People, who could not live without Submission to Superiors, yet cared not to submit, or were easily persuaded that they ought not, after long and violent Distrust, attack the Senate, and murder most of the Senators, as Enemies to popular Government. The Senate, in Revenge, fall upon the People, as Enemies to all Government, and Rebels to their own: They prevail, and rout the Multitude. The People rally, aided even by the Women, and by the Slaves, now purposely declared Free, and thus put into a Condition to master their late Masters, who, in their Fury, rather risque Tyranny from their Bond-men, than bear Subjection to their legal and natural Rulers. They now vanquish the Senators. The Senators make fresh Efforts: So do the Populace: The Conflict goes on, and dreadful Havock follows it, incessant Cruelty and Devastation, Houses fired, Citizens murdered, public and private Wealth destroyed, and the whole City threatened with Conflagration.
A Reconciliation is patched up, but does not cure mutual Enmity, as it cannot cancel the Memory of mutual Injuries and Provocations. Piques and Suspicions still subsist, and produce fresh Insults: These are returned and multiplied, portending and hastening another Massacre. The People think themselves, and their Liberty, still in Danger, whilst any Senators are left; and therefore butcher all that are to be found. Nor can their own Leaders and Partizans escape their Rage. Whoever is a Friend to Peace, they judge to be a Foe to Them. Their Rage continues and increases, and, besides all that they murder, they frighten Numbers to murder themselves. Their constant Charge against all these Victims was, that they were Enemies to Liberty, to the Interest of the People, and to popular Government, which, by such a Torrent of Phrensy, of Rage, and Barbarity, they thus rescue, and thus recommend.
It may be easily guessed, how fast Slander and Lyes prevailed at this horrid Conjuncture, and how busy and fashionable were all public Incendiaries, and personal Revilers. All Sorts of Immorality prospered; Acts of Treachery and Fraud went Hand in Hand with Acts of Violence. Some committed Murder out of private Revenge: Some discharged their Debts by murdering their Creditors: But it was still Zeal for the People that prompted Murderers, and justified Murder; and whilst Death was seen in all Shapes, and inflicted upon all mean Occasions and Provocations, the same infamous Plea served for all. Many, who thought themselves secure in the Protection of Sanctuaries, were dragged from them, and butchered near them: Many were immured, and perished in them.
Such was the Blindness, as well as Fury, of this Civil Rage, that Good and Evil lost their Names and Application. Good was Evil, Evil was Good; just as Men, in seeing or doing either, were inspired by their Passions: Whatever gratified the worst Passions, was best: The Author of the most Mischief was the greatest Hero. Party-Spirit was the great and uncontroulable Adviser and Defender of all things: Its grossest Misrepresentations were readily believed; its most furious Dictates most chearfully obeyed. Party-Merit outweighed all Regard to Kindred, cancelled all Friendship, extinguished all Gratitude, covered all Crimes, sanctified all Enormities. Law and Obligations, whether Divine or Human, where-ever they interfered with Party, were spurned and trod upon by Party: For, Patty was the Public; and all things must give Way to the Public. It was Mean to Forgive: It was Cowardice not to seek Revenge. Oaths were taken, not to be kept, but to deceive and ensnare: The more Treachery, the more Art and Policy: The higher Cruelty, the higher Heroism. To excel in Fraud, was the highest Excellency. Honesty was Weakness: Deceit and Knavery were Proofs of Ability. A Passion to bear Rule, to gratify Ambition by Avarice, and Avarice by Ambition, was the great and laudable Passion. A selfish Spirit was public Spirit, which it contradicted and destroyed.
All specious Pretences were offered, every plausible Name was assumed, by both Sides. Here the natural Equality and Power of the People were urged and maintained, as the only Source of Justice, and public Liberty, against the Authority of Some over All. There, a steady Government of Chiefs and Representatives, was contended for over the giddy Multitude. Both Parties alleged the Public Good; both Parties obstructed and banished it. Both committed horrible Outrages upon each other; both destroyed Men of moderate Spirits, and reconciling Principles. Fools, by observing no Rule, had the Advantage of Men of Sense, who observed the Rule of Wisdom. Villains were an Overmatch for such as adhered to the Measures of Justice.
I must inform my unlearned Readers, that as the Reign of the Multitude could not be long, popular Fury was at last subdued: The Nobles who escaped, about Six hundred in Number, uniting and returning, soon brought Distress and Misery upon the Populace, burnt their Shipping, robbed the Island, and thus caused a Famine; then raised a Fort above the City, and soon became Masters of the Island itself.
DISCOURSE IX.
To His GraceARCHIBALD, Duke of Argyll. Of the Mutability of Government.
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