save themselves by submitting to slavery. The foe and conqueror
[Footnote: Seneca is careful to avoid the mention of Caesar's name,
which might have given offence to the emperors under whom he lived,
who used the name as a title.] of Pompeius was himself ungrateful;
he brought war from Gaul and Germany to Rome, and he, the friend of
the populace, the champion of the commons, pitched his camp in the
Circus Flaminus, nearer to the city than Porsena's camp had been.
He did, indeed, use the cruel privileges of victory with
moderation; as was said at the time, he protected his countrymen,
and put to death no man who was not in arms. Yet what credit is
there in this? Others used their arms more cruelly, but flung them
away when glutted with blood, while he, though he soon sheathed the
sword, never laid it aside. Antonius was ungrateful to his
dictator, who he declared was rightly slain, and whose murderers he
allowed to depart to their commands in the provinces; as for his
country, after it had been torn to pieces by so many proscriptions,
invasions, and civil wars, he intended to subject it to kings, not
even of Roman birth, and to force that very state to pay tribute to
eunuchs, [Footnote: The allusion is to Antonius's connection with
Cleopatra. Cf. Virg. "Aen.," viii., 688.] which had itself restored
sovereign rights, autonomy, and immunities, to the Achaeans, the
Rhodians, and the people of many other famous cities.

XVII. The day would not be long enough for me to enumerate those
who have pushed their ingratitude so far as to ruin their native
land. It would be as vast a task to mention how often the state has
been ungrateful to its best and most devoted lovers, although it
has done no less wrong than it has suffered. It sent Camillus and
Scipio into exile; even after the death of Catiline it exiled
Cicero, destroyed his house, plundered his property, and did