You ought to have
then prevented their first attempts, when they fell a reproaching your
relations; but by neglecting that care in time, you have encouraged
these wretches to plunder men. When houses were pillaged, nobody said
a word, which was the occasion why they carried off the owners of those
houses; and when they were drawn through the midst of the city, nobody
came to their assistance. They then proceeded to put those whom you have
betrayed into their hands into bonds. I do not say how many and of what
characters those men were whom they thus served; but certainly they were
such as were accused by none, and condemned by none; and since nobody
succored them when they were put into bonds, the consequence was, that
you saw the same persons slain. We have seen this also; so that still
the best of the herd of brute animals, as it were, have been still led
to be sacrificed, when yet nobody said one word, or moved his right hand
for their preservation. Will you bear, therefore, will you bear to see
your sanctuary trampled on? and will you lay steps for these profane
wretches, upon which they may mount to higher degrees of insolence? Will
not you pluck them down from their exaltation? for even by this time
they had proceeded to higher enormities, if they had been able to
overthrow any thing greater than the sanctuary. They have seized upon
the strongest place of the whole city; you may call it the temple, if
you please, though it be like a citadel or fortress. Now, while you have
tyranny in so great a degree walled in, and see your enemies over your
heads, to what purpose is it to take counsel? and what have you to
support your minds withal? Perhaps you wait for the Romans, that they
may protect our holy places: are our matters then brought to that pass?
and are we come to that degree of misery, that our enemies themselves
are expected to pity us? O wretched creatures! will not you rise up and
turn upon those that strike you? which you may observe in wild beasts
themselves, that they will avenge themselves on those that strike
them. Will you not call to mind, every one of you, the calamities you
yourselves have suffered? nor lay before your eyes what afflictions you
yourselves have undergone? and will not such things sharpen your souls
to revenge? Is therefore that most honorable and most natural of our
passions utterly lost, I mean the desire of liberty? Truly we are in
love with slavery, and in love with those that lord