City of God 5.12–5.17

Chapter 12. By what character the ancient Romans deserved that the true God, though they did not worship him, should enlarge their empire.

Let us see, then, what Roman characteristics, and for what reason, the true God, in whose power are also the kingdoms of the earth, deigned to help in enlarging the empire. It was to discuss this more fully that we wrote the previous book too, which bears on it, showing that in this matter the gods whom they thought should be worshipped even with trifling rites have no power; and also the earlier parts of the present book, which we have carried to this point, on removing the question of fate, lest anyone already persuaded that the Roman empire was not extended and preserved by the worship of those gods should attribute it to some fate or other rather than to the most powerful will of the supreme God. The ancient and early Romans, then, as far as their history teaches and commends them, though like other nations (except the one people of the Hebrews) they worshipped false gods and sacrificed victims not to God but to demons, were nevertheless “eager for praise, generous with money; they wanted immense glory and honest riches.” This glory they loved most ardently; for it they wished to live, for it they did not hesitate to die. All other desires they suppressed by the immense desire for this one thing. Finally, because to serve seemed inglorious, but to rule and command glorious, they desired their country itself first with all zeal to be free, then to be mistress. Hence it was that, not bearing the rule of kings, “they made for themselves annual commands and two commanders,” who were called consuls from consulting, not kings or lords from reigning and lording it; though kings certainly seem better named from ruling [regere], as kingdom from kings, and kings, as has been said, from ruling; but royal pride was thought to be not the discipline of one who rules or the goodwill of one who consults, but the arrogance of one who lords it. So when King Tarquin had been expelled and consuls instituted, there followed what the same author set down in praise of the Romans: that “it is incredible to relate how greatly the state grew in a short time once liberty was won; so great a desire for glory had come upon it.” This eagerness for praise and desire for glory, then, did those many wonderful things, praiseworthy, that is, and glorious in human estimation. The same Sallust praises the great and illustrious men of his own time, Marcus Cato and Gaius Caesar, saying that for a long time that republic had had no one great in virtue, but that in his memory there had been these two, of immense virtue, of different characters. Among Caesar's praises he set down that he longed for a great command, an army, a new war, where his virtue could shine. So it came about, in the prayers of men great in virtue, that Bellona should stir up wretched nations to war and drive them with her bloody scourge, so that there might be somewhere for their virtue to shine. This, certainly, is what that eagerness for praise and desire for glory did. So from love, first of liberty and afterwards also of domination, and from the desire for praise and glory, they did many great things. Their famous poet gives them testimony on both counts; for he says:

“Porsenna too bade them take back the banished Tarquin and pressed the city with a mighty siege; the sons of Aeneas rushed upon the sword for liberty.”

At that time, then, it was a great thing for them either to die bravely or to live free. But when liberty had been won, so great a desire for glory had come upon them that liberty alone was too little unless domination was also sought, since what the same poet says, as if in Jupiter's words, was held to be a great thing:

“Nay, harsh Juno, who now wearies sea and lands and sky with fear, will change her counsels for the better, and with me will cherish the Romans, lords of the world, the nation of the toga. So it is decreed. As the lustra glide by, an age will come when the house of Assaracus will press Phthia and famous Mycenae into servitude and rule over conquered Argos.”

Virgil, bringing in Jupiter as if foretelling these things as future, was himself recalling things already done and seeing them present; but I wished to mention them to show that the Romans held domination after liberty in such a way that it was counted among their great praises. Hence also that saying of the same poet, when he sets these proper Roman arts of ruling, commanding, subduing, and conquering peoples before the arts of other nations:

“Others will hammer out breathing bronze more softly, I grant it; they will draw living faces from marble, plead causes better, trace the paths of the sky with the rod and tell the rising stars: remember, Roman, to rule the peoples with command (these will be your arts), and to impose the ways of peace, to spare the subject and war down the proud.”

They practiced these arts the more skillfully the less they gave themselves to pleasures and to enervation of mind and body in coveting and increasing riches, and through them corrupting morals, robbing wretched citizens and lavishing on disgraceful stage players. Those, however, who already surpassed and abounded in such corruption of morals when Sallust was writing these things and Virgil singing them, sought honors and glory not by those arts but by tricks and deceits. So the same author says: “But at first ambition rather than avarice exercised men's minds, a vice that was nevertheless nearer to virtue. For glory, honor, and command the good and the worthless man alike desire for themselves; but the former,” he says, “strives by the true way; the latter, because he lacks good arts, contends by tricks and deceits.” These are those good arts: to attain honor, glory, and command by virtue, not by deceitful ambition; which things the good and the worthless alike desire for themselves; but the former, that is, the good man, strives by the true way. The way is virtue, by which he strives as toward the goal of possession, that is, glory, honor, and command. That the Romans had this ingrained in them is shown also by the temples of their gods, which they set up closely joined together, of Virtue and of Honor, taking for gods what are given by God. From this it can be understood what end those who were good wished virtue to have, and to what they referred it: to honor. For the bad did not even have virtue, though they desired to have honor, which they tried to obtain by bad arts, that is, by tricks and deceits. Cato was praised better. For he says of him: “The less he sought glory, the more it followed him.” For the glory with whose desire they burned is the judgment of men who think well of men; and therefore virtue is better which is content with no human testimony but that of its own conscience. So the apostle says: “For this is our glory: the testimony of our conscience”; and in another place: “But let each one test his own work, and then he will have glory in himself alone and not in another.” So glory, honor, and command, which they desired for themselves and which the good strove to attain by good arts, ought not to be followed by virtue; rather they ought to follow virtue. For there is no true virtue except that which tends to that end where the good of man is, than which there is nothing better. So Cato ought not to have sought even the honors that he sought; rather the state ought to have given them to him for his virtue without his seeking them. But since in that memory there were two Romans great in virtue, Caesar and Cato, the virtue of Cato seems to have been far nearer the truth than Caesar's. So let us see what the state was like at that time, and what it had been like before, in Cato's own speech: “Do not think,” he says, “that our ancestors made the republic great from small by arms. If that were so, we would have it far more splendid; for we have a greater supply of allies and citizens, and moreover of arms and horses, than they had. But there were other things that made them great, which we have not at all: industry at home, just rule abroad, a mind free in counsel, bound neither by crime nor by lust. Instead of these we have luxury and avarice, poverty in public, wealth in private; we praise riches, we pursue idleness; between good and bad there is no distinction; ambition possesses all the rewards of virtue. And no wonder: when each of you takes counsel for himself apart, when at home you serve pleasures and here money or favor, the result is that an assault is made on the defenseless republic.” Whoever hears these words of Cato, or of Sallust, thinks that all the ancient Romans, or most of them, were then such as those who are praised. It is not so; otherwise the things he likewise writes would not be true, which I mentioned in the second book of this work, where he says that the injustices of the stronger, and on account of them the secession of the plebs from the fathers, and other dissensions at home, existed from the very beginning, and that affairs were conducted with fair and moderate law only after the kings were expelled, as long as there was fear of Tarquin, until the serious war undertaken with Etruria on his account was ended; but that afterwards the fathers oppressed the plebs with a slave's rule, flogged them in kingly fashion, drove them from the land, and alone held command, the rest excluded; and that the end of these discords, while the one side wished to lord it and the other refused to serve, came in the Second Punic War, because a grave fear again began to press and to restrain restless minds from those disturbances by another, greater care, and to call them back to civil concord. But great things were administered through a certain few who were good after their fashion, and when those evils were tolerated and tempered, that state grew by the foresight of a few good men. So the same historian says that as he read and heard of the many illustrious deeds the Roman people did at home and in war, by sea and land, he was pleased to consider what had above all sustained such great undertakings; for he knew that the Romans had often contended with a small band against great legions of the enemy, and he had learned that wars had been waged with small forces against wealthy kings; and after much thought, he said, it was clear to him that the outstanding virtue of a few citizens had accomplished everything, and that so it came about that poverty overcame riches and fewness multitude. “But after the state was corrupted by luxury and sloth,” he says, “the republic in turn sustained by its own greatness the vices of its generals and magistrates.” So the virtue of a few, striving for glory, honor, and command by the true way, that is, by virtue itself, was praised even by Cato. Hence came the industry at home that Cato mentioned, so that the treasury was rich and private fortunes slender. So when morals were corrupted he set down the vice opposite to it: poverty in public, wealth in private.

Chapter 13. On the love of praise, which, though it is a vice, is thought a virtue because greater vices are restrained by it.

Therefore, after the kingdoms of the East had been illustrious for a long time, God willed that the Western kingdom also should arise, which was later in time but more illustrious in the breadth and greatness of its empire; and he granted it above all to men of this kind, to subdue the grievous evils of many nations: men who, for the sake of honor, praise, and glory, took thought for their country, in which they sought that very glory, and did not hesitate to set its safety before their own, suppressing the desire for money and many other vices for the sake of this one vice, that is, the love of praise. For he sees more soundly who recognizes that the love of praise too is a vice; which did not escape even the poet Horace, who says:

“You swell with love of praise: there are sure expiations which can restore you if you read a little book three times with a pure heart.”

And the same poet sang thus in a lyric poem to check the lust for domination:

“You would reign more widely by taming a greedy spirit than if you joined Libya to distant Gades and both Carthaginians served you alone.”

Nevertheless, those who do not restrain their baser lusts by the faith of piety, obtained through the Holy Spirit, and by love of intelligible beauty, are at least better for the desire of human praise and glory: not indeed yet holy, but less base. Even Tully could not conceal this in the books he wrote On the Republic, where he speaks of training the leading man of the state, who he says must be nourished by glory; and he goes on to mention that his ancestors did many wonderful and splendid things from the desire for glory. So far from resisting this vice, then, they even thought it should be stirred up and kindled, supposing it useful to the republic. Yet even in his books of philosophy Tully does not conceal this plague, but confesses it more clearly than daylight. For when he was speaking of such pursuits as ought certainly to be followed for the end of the true good, not for the windiness of human praise, he brought in this universal and general maxim: “Honor nourishes the arts, and all are kindled to study by glory, and those things always lie neglected which are disapproved by each people.”

Chapter 14. On cutting away the love of human praise, since all the glory of the righteous is in God.

This desire, then, is without doubt better resisted than yielded to. For each one is more like God the purer he is of this uncleanness. And though in this life it is not rooted out of the heart completely, since it does not cease to tempt even souls that are making good progress, at least let the desire for glory be overcome by the love of righteousness; so that, if things “lie neglected which are disapproved” by some people, if they are good, if they are right, even the love of human praise itself may blush and yield to the love of truth. For this vice is so hostile to godly faith, if the desire for glory is greater in the heart than the fear or love of God, that the Lord said: “How can you believe, when you expect glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from God alone?” Likewise, of certain people who had believed in him and were afraid to confess it openly, the evangelist says: “They loved the glory of men more than that of God.” This the holy apostles did not do. When they preached the name of Christ in places where it was not only disapproved (as that man says, “and those things always lie neglected which are disapproved by each people”) but held in the utmost detestation, holding to what they had heard from the good Master, who is also the physician of minds, “If anyone denies me before men, I will deny him before my Father who is in heaven,” or “before the angels of God,” amid curses and reproaches, amid the heaviest persecutions and cruel punishments, they were not deterred from preaching human salvation by so great a roar of human offense. And when, as they did and said divine things and lived divinely, hard hearts were in a way conquered and the peace of righteousness brought in, and great glory followed them in the church of Christ, they did not rest in it as in the end of their own virtue, but referred that glory too to the glory of God, by whose grace they were such; and by this kindling too they fired those for whom they cared with love of him by whom they also might become such. For their Master had taught them not to be good for the sake of human glory, saying: “Beware of doing your righteousness before men in order to be seen by them; otherwise you will have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” But again, lest they should understand this wrongly and be afraid to please men, and do less good by hiding that they were good, he showed for what end they ought to become known: “Let your works shine,” he says, “before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Not, then, “in order to be seen by them,” that is, with this intention, that you want them to turn to you, since you are nothing by yourselves; but “that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven,” so that, turned to him, they may become what you are. The martyrs followed these, who surpassed the Scaevolas and Curtii and Decii, not by inflicting punishments on themselves but by bearing those inflicted, both by true virtue, because by true piety, and by their countless multitude. But since those men were in the earthly city, for whom the end set before all their duties toward it was its safety, and a kingdom not in heaven but on earth, not in eternal life but in the passing of the dying and the succession of those about to die, what else would they love but glory, by which they wished to live even after death, as it were, on the lips of those who praised them?

Chapter 15. On the temporal reward that God gave to the good character of the Romans.

Those, then, to whom God was not going to give eternal life with his holy angels in his heavenly city, to whose fellowship true piety leads, which does not offer the service of religion, which the Greeks call latreia, to any but the one true God: if he had not granted them even this earthly glory of a most excellent empire, no reward would have been given to their good arts, that is, their virtues, by which they strove to attain such great glory. For of such people, who seem to do some good in order to be glorified by men, the Lord also says: “Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.” So these men too despised their private affairs for the common good, that is, the republic, and for its treasury; they resisted avarice; they took thought for their country with free counsel, bound neither by crime (according to their laws) nor by lust. By all these arts, as by the true way, they strove for honors, command, and glory; they were honored among almost all nations, they imposed the laws of their empire on many nations, and to this day they are glorious in literature and history among almost all nations. They have no reason to complain of the justice of the supreme and true God: “they have received their reward.”

Chapter 16. On the reward of the holy citizens of the eternal city, to whom the examples of Roman virtues are useful.

But the reward of the saints is far different, who even here bear reproaches for the truth of God, which is hateful to the lovers of this world. That city is everlasting. There no one is born, because no one dies; there is true and full happiness, not a goddess but a gift of God; from there we have received the pledge of faith, while as pilgrims we sigh for its beauty. There the sun does not rise on the good and the evil, but the sun of righteousness protects the good alone; there it will be no great industry to enrich the public treasury while private means are narrow, where the treasure of truth is common. So the Roman empire was extended for human glory not only that such a reward might be given to such men, but also that the citizens of that eternal city, while they are pilgrims here, might diligently and soberly look at those examples and see how much love is owed to the heavenly country for the sake of eternal life, if the earthly one was so loved by its citizens for the sake of human glory.

Chapter 17. What profit the Romans gained from their wars, and how much they conferred on those they conquered.

For as far as this mortal life is concerned, which is spent and ended in a few days, what does it matter under whose rule a man who is going to die lives, if those who rule do not force him to impiety and injustice? Or did the Romans do any harm to the nations they subjugated and on which they imposed their laws, except that it was done with an immense slaughter of wars? If it had been done by agreement, it would have been done with better success; but there would have been no glory for those who triumphed. For the Romans too lived under their own laws, which they imposed on the rest. If this had been done without Mars and Bellona, so that there was no place for Victoria either, no one conquering where no one had fought, would not the Romans and the other nations have had one and the same condition? Especially if that had been done at once which was afterwards done most graciously and humanely, that all belonging to the Roman empire received the fellowship of citizenship and were Roman citizens, and so what had belonged to a few belonged to all; only that the plebs who had no land of their own would live at public expense; and their sustenance would be supplied more gladly through good administrators of the republic by those in concord than it would be extorted from the conquered. For I do not see at all what difference it makes to safety and good morals, or certainly to men's very dignities, that some conquered and others were conquered, apart from that most empty pride of human glory, in which “they have received their reward” who burned with an immense desire for it and waged burning wars. For do not their lands pay tribute? Are they allowed to learn what others are not? Are there not many senators in other lands who do not know Rome even by sight? Take away boasting, and what are all men but men? And even if the perversity of the world allowed that the better men should be the more honored, not even so ought human honor to be held of great account, for it is smoke that has no weight. But let us make use of the kindness of the Lord our God even in these matters; let us consider how great things those men despised, what they endured, what desires they subdued for human glory, who deserved to receive it as the reward of such virtues; and let this too help us to crush pride, so that, since that city in which it has been promised to us to reign is as far from this one as heaven is from earth, eternal life from temporal joy, solid glory from empty praises, the fellowship of angels from the fellowship of mortals, the light of him who made the sun and moon from the light of the sun and moon, the citizens of so great a country may not think they have done anything great if, to obtain it, they have done some good work or endured some evils, when those men did so much and suffered so much for this earthly country already obtained; especially since the forgiveness of sins, which gathers citizens into the eternal country, has something to which that asylum of Romulus was like as a kind of shadow, where impunity for every sort of crime gathered the multitude by whom that city was to be founded.