[131]
Is it right, then,
that in these matters anything should be passed over without the ruler knowing it? It is
not right, O judges, but it is inevitable. In truth, if the great and kind Jupiter, by whose will and command the heaven, the
earth, and the seas are governed, has often by too violent winds, or by immoderate
tempests, or by too much heat, or by intolerable cold, injured men, destroyed cities, or
ruined the crops; nothing of which do we suppose to have taken place, for the sake of
causing injury, by the divine intention, but owing to the power and magnitude of the
affairs of the world; but on the other hand we see that the advantages which we have the
benefit of, and the light which we enjoy, and the air which we breathe, are all given to
and bestowed upon us by him; how can we wonder that Lucius Sulla, when he alone was
governing the whole republic, and administering the affairs of the whole world, and
strengthening by his laws the majesty of the empire, which he had recovered by arms,
should have been forced to leave some things unnoticed? Unless this is strange that
human faculties have not a power which divine might is unable to attain to.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.