ds.

In the next place, he would see in Greece, as among ourselves,
magnificent temples consecrated by images in human form, which the
Persians regarded as impious; and it is affirmed that the sole motive
of Xerxes for commanding the conflagration of the Athenian temples was
the belief that it was a superstitious sacrilege to keep confined
within narrow walls the Gods, whose proper home was the entire
universe. But afterward Philip, in his hostile projects against the
Persians, and Alexander, who carried them into execution, alleged this
plea for war, that they were desirous to avenge the temples of Greece,
which the Greeks had thought proper never to rebuild, that this
monument of the impiety of the Persians might always remain before the
eyes of their posterity.

How many--such as the inhabitants of Taurica along the Euxine Sea; as
the King of Egypt, Busiris; as the Gauls and the Carthaginians--have
thought it exceedingly pious and agreeable to the Gods to sacrifice
men! And, besides, the customs of life are so various that the Cretans
and AEtolians regard robbery as honorable. And the Lacedaemonians say
that their territory extends to all places which they can touch with a
lance. The Athenians had a custom of swearing, by a public
proclamation, that all the lands which produced olives and corn were
their own. The Gauls consider it a base employment to raise corn by
agricultural labor, and go with arms in their hands, and mow down the
harvests of neighboring peoples. But we ourselves, the most equitable
of all nations, who, in order to raise the value of our vines and
olives, do not permit the races beyond the Alps to cultivate either
vineyards or oliveyards, are said in this matter to act with prudence,
but not with justice. You see, then, that wisdom and policy are not
always the same as equity. And Lycurgus, that famous inventor of a most
admirable jurisprudence and most wholesome laws, gave the lands of the
rich to be cultivated by the common people, who were reduced to
slavery.

X. If I were to describe the diverse kinds of laws, institutions,
manners, and customs, not only as they vary in the numerous nations,
but as they vary likewise in single cities--in this one of ours, for
example--I could prove that they have had a thousand revolutions. For
instance, that eminent expositor of our laws who sits in the present
company--I mean Manilius--if you were to consult him relative to the
legacies and inheritances