Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/rome/4-07-sulpician-revolution.asp?pg=76

ELPENOR - Home of the Greek Word

Three Millennia of Greek Literature
Constantinople Home Page  

Please note that Mommsen uses the AUC chronology (Ab Urbe Condita), i.e. from the founding of the City of Rome. You can use this reference table to have the B.C. dates

THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

IV. The Revolution

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson


The History of Old Rome

Chapter VII - The Revolt of the Italian Subjects, and the Sulpician Revolution

ELPENOR EDITIONS IN PRINT

The Original Greek New Testament

» Contents of this Chapter

Page 76

Hardly had any democrat ever exercised justice in forms so tyrannical, or disturbed and remodelled the foundations of the constitution with so reckless an audacity, as this conservative reformer. But if we look at the substance instead of the form, we reach very different results. Revolutions have nowhere ended, and least of all in Rome, without demanding a certain number of victims, who under forms more or less borrowed from justice atone for the fault of being vanquished as though it were a crime.

Any one who recalls the succession of prosecutions carried on by the victorious party after the fall of the Gracchi and Saturninus(27) will be inclined to yield to the victor of the Esquiline market the praise of candour and comparative moderation, in so far as, first he without ceremony accepted as war what was really such and proscribed the men who were defeated as enemies beyond the pale of the law, and, secondly, he limited as far as possible the number of victims and allowed at least no offensive outbreak of fury against inferior persons.

27. Cf. IV. II. Death of Gracchus, IV. III. Attack on The Transmarine Colonization. Downfall of Gracchus, IV. VI. Saturninus Assailed

Previous / First / Next Page of this Chapter

Do you see any typos or other mistakes? Please let us know and correct them

The History of Old Rome: Contents ||| The Medieval West | The Making of Europe | Constantinople Home Page

Three Millennia of Greek Literature

Receive updates :

Learned Freeware

Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/rome/4-07-sulpician-revolution.asp?pg=76