soldiery. Then the armies of the Roman people first became habituated
to licentiousness and intemperance, and began to admire statues,
pictures, and sculptured vases; to seize such objects alike in public
edifices and private dwellings;[70] to spoil temples; and to cast off
respect for every thing, sacred and profane. Such troops, accordingly,
when once they obtained the mastery, left nothing to be vanquished.
Success unsettles the principles even of the wise, and scarcely would
those of debauched habits use victory with moderation.

XII. When wealth was once considered an honor, and glory, authority,
and power attended on it, virtue lost her influence, poverty was
thought a disgrace, and a life of innocence was regarded as a life of
ill-nature.[71] From the influence of riches, accordingly, luxury,
avarice, and pride prevailed among the youth; they grew at once
rapacious and prodigal; they undervalued what was their own, and
coveted what was another's; they set at naught modesty and continence;
they lost all distinction between sacred and profane, and threw off
all consideration and self-restraint.

It furnishes much matter for reflection,[72] after viewing our modern
mansions and villas extended to the size of cities, to contemplate the
temples which our ancestors, a most devout race of men, erected to the
gods. But our forefathers adorned the fanes of the deities with devotion,
and their homes with their own glory, and took nothing from those whom
they conquered but the power of doing harm; their descendants, on the
contrary, the basest of mankind,[73] have even wrested from their allies,
with the most flagrant injustice, whatever their brave and victorious
ancestors had left to their vanquished enemies; as if the only use of
power were to inflict injury.