ign they might undertake;
Nasica, I say, observing this, was desirous that they should continue in
fear of Carthage, in order that this might serve as a curb to restrain and
check their audacious conduct. For it was his opinion, that the
Carthaginians were too weak to subdue the Romans; and at the same time too
strong to be considered by them in a contemptible light. With regard to
Cato, he thought that as his countrymen were become haughty and insolent
by success, and plunged headlong into profligacy of every kind; nothing
could be more dangerous, than for them to have for a rival and an enemy, a
city that till now had been powerful, but was become, even by its
misfortunes, more wise and provident than ever; and not to remove the
fears of the inhabitants entirely with regard to a foreign power; since
they had, within their own walls, all the opportunities of indulging
themselves in excesses of every kind.

To lay aside, for one instant, the laws of equity, I leave the reader to
determine which of these two great men reasoned most justly, according to
the maxims of sound policy, and the true interest of a state. One
undoubted circumstance is, that all historians have observed that there
was a sensible change in the conduct and government of the Romans,
immediately after the ruin of Carthage:(868) that vice no longer made its
way into Rome with a timorous pace, and as it were by stealth, but
appeared barefaced, and seized, with astonishing rapidity, upon all orders
of the republic: that the senators, plebeians, in a word, all conditions,
abandoned themselves to luxury and voluptuousness, without moderation or
sense of decency, which occasioned, as it must necessarily, the ruin of
the state. "The first Scipio,"(869) says Paterculus, speaking of the
Romans, "had laid the foundations of their future grandeur; and the last,
by his conquests, opened a door to all manner of luxury and dissoluteness.
For, after Carthage, which obliged Rome to stand for ever on its guard, by
disputing empire with that city, had been totally destroyed, the depravity
of manners was no longer slow in its progress, but swelled at once into
the utmost excess of corruption."

Be this as it may, the senate resolved to declare war against the
Carthaginians; and the reasons or pretences urged for it were, their
having maintained ships contrary to the tenour of the treaty; their having
sent an army out of their territories, against a prince who was in
al