. For we have now
come to a combat in which even the winning of the victory will not be
without tears for us, since we are fighting against kinsmen and men who
have been reared with us. But we have this comfort in our misfortune,
that we are not ourselves beginning the battle, but have been brought
into the conflict in our own defence. For he who has framed the plot
against his dearest friends and by his own act has dissolved the ties of
kinship, dies not, if he perishes, by the hands of his friends, but
having become an enemy is but making atonement to those who have
suffered wrong. And that our opponents are public enemies and barbarians
and whatever worse name one might call them, is shewn not alone by
Libya, which has become plunder under their hands, nor by the
inhabitants of this land, who have been wrongfully slain, but also by
the multitude of Roman soldiers whom these enemies have dared to kill,
though they have had but one fault to charge them with--loyalty to their
government. And it is to avenge these their victims that we have now
come against them, having with good reason become enemies to those who
were once most dear. For nature has made no men in the world either
friends or opponents to one another, but it is the actions of men in
every case which, either by the similarity of the motives which actuate
them unite them in alliance, or by the difference set them in hostility
to each other, making them friends or enemies as the case may be. That,
therefore, we are fighting against men who are outlaws and enemies of
the state, you must now be convinced; and now I shall make it plain that
they deserve to be despised by us. For a throng of men united by no law,
but brought together by motives of injustice, is utterly unable by
nature to play the part of brave men, since valour is unable to dwell
with lawlessness, but always shuns those who are unholy. Nor, indeed,
will they preserve discipline or give heed to the commands given by
Stotzas. For when a tyranny is newly organized and has not yet won that
authority which self-confidence gives, it is, of necessity, looked upon
by its subjects with contempt. Nor is it honoured through any sentiment
of loyalty, for a tyranny is, in the nature of the case, hated; nor does
it lead its subjects by fear, for timidity deprives it of the power to
speak out openly. And when the enemy is handicapped in point of valour
and of discipline, their defeat is ready at hand. With grea