against him were not confined to Rome. They went to the neighboring
cities and to distant provinces, carrying terror and distress every
where. Still, dreadful as these evils were, it is possible for us, in
the conceptions which we form, to overrate the extent of them. In
reading the history of the Roman empire during the civil wars of Marius
and Sylla, one might easily imagine that the whole population of the
country was organized into the two contending armies, and were employed
wholly in the work of fighting with and massacring each other. But
nothing like this can be true. It is obviously but a small part, after
all, of an extended community that can be ever actively and personally
engaged in these deeds of violence and blood. Man is not naturally a
ferocious wild beast. On the contrary, he loves, ordinarily, to live in
peace and quietness, to till his lands and tend his flocks, and to enjoy
the blessings of peace and repose. It is comparatively but a small
number in any age of the world, and in any nation, whose passions of
ambition, hatred, or revenge become so strong as that they love
bloodshed and war. But these few, when they once get weapons into their
hands, trample recklessly and mercilessly upon the rest. One ferocious
human tiger, with a spear or a bayonet to brandish, will tyrannize as he
pleases over a hundred quiet men, who are armed only with shepherds'
crooks, and whose only desire is to live in peace with their wives and
their children.

[Sidenote: Husbandmen.]
[Sidenote: How the Roman edifices were built.]
[Sidenote: Standing armies.]

Thus, while Marius and Sylla, with some hundred thousand armed and
reckless followers, were carrying terror and dismay wherever they went,
there were many millions of herdsmen and husbandmen in the Roman world