man race? is there not a general complaint that
benefits are thrown away, and that there are very few men who do not
requite their benefactors with the basest ingratitude? Nor need you
suppose that what we say is merely the grumbling of men who think
every act wicked and depraved which falls short of an ideal standard of
righteousness. Listen! I know not who it is who speaks, yet the voice
with which he condemns mankind proceeds, not from the schools of
philosophers, but from the midst of the crowd:

"Host is not safe from guest;
Father-in-law from son; but seldom love
Exists 'twixt brothers; wives long to destroy
Their husbands; husbands long to slay their wives."

This goes even further: according to this, crimes take the place of
benefits, and men do not shrink from shedding the blood of those for
whom they ought to shed their own; we requite benefits by steel and
poison. We call laying violent hands upon our own country, and putting
down its resistance by the fasces of its own lictors, gaining power
and great place; every man thinks himself to be in a mean and degraded
position if he has not raised himself above the constitution; the armies
which are received from the state are turned against her, and a general
now says to his men, "Fight against your wives, fight against your
children, march in arms against your altars, your hearths and homes!"
Yes, [Footnote: I believe, in spite of Gertz, that this is part of
the speech of the Roman general, and that the conjecture of Muretus,
"without the command of the senate," gives better sense.] you, who even
when about to triumph ought not to enter the city at the command of the
senate, and who have often, when bringing home a victorious army, been
given an audience outside the walls, you now, after slaughtering your
countrymen, stained with the blood of your kindred, march into the city
with standards erect. "Let liberty," say you, "be silent amidst the
ensigns of war, and now that wars are driven far away and no ground
for terror remains, let that people which conquered and civilized all
nations be beleaguered within its own walls, and shudder at the sight of
its own eagles."

XVI. Coriolanus was ungrateful, and became dutiful late, and after
repenting of his crime; he did indeed lay down his arms, but only in
the midst of his unnatural warfare. Catilina was ungrateful; he was
not satisfied with taking his country captive without overturning it,
without desp