bellies which could be forgiven by the very ghosts of the people

whose bodies they used as food? Now, of course, we know better

thanks to the teachings of Zeno, but who would expect a Spaniard

to be a Stoic, at least in the days of old Metellus?

Today the entire world has its Graeco-Roman culture;

smooth-tongued Gaul has been coaching British barristers; now

there’s talk of hiring a rhetoric-teacher in Timbuctoo!

The community mentioned, however, was noble. It was matched by Zacynthus in valour and loyalty, and indeed outweighed in the scale of disaster.

But what excuse does Egypt have for being more savage

than Crimea’s altar? (For the Tauric founder of that ghastly rite,

if one accepts the poets’ tradition as worthy of credence,

contents herself with human sacrifice. Therefore the victim

has nothing more hideous to fear beyond the knife.) What affliction

recently goaded them? What ravenous hunger, what army

besieging their city walls impelled them to hazard an outrage

so revolting? What more could they do, if the land of Memphis

were parched with drought, to shame the lazy Nile into rising?

Neither the dreaded Cimbrian hordes, nor the barbarous Britons,

nor the grim Sarmatians, nor yet the wild Agathyrsi raged

with the utter frenzy displayed by that soft and worthless rabble

who are used to setting their tiny sails on earthenware vessels,

and to bending over their miniature oars in painted potsherds.

You will never match such a crime with punishment, or devise retribution

to suit communities such as these; for in their way of thinking

hunger and anger are one and the same. By giving tears

to the human race Nature revealed she was giving us also

tender hearts; compassion is the finest part of our make-up.

She therefore moves us to pity the accused, as he pleads his case

unkempt in body and dress, or the orphan who brings to court

his swindling guardian, and whose face, streaming with tears, and framed

by his girlish hair, invites the question ‘Is he a boy?’.

It is Nature who makes us cry when we meet the cortège of a girl

on the eve of marriage, or a little child too small for the pyre

is laid in a grave. For what good man—the sort who deserves

the initiate’s torch and lives as the priest of Ceres would have him—

believes that any woes are remote from him? It is this

that marks us off from the brutish herd. Moreover, we only

possess an intellect worthy of homage, have god-like powers,

and are able to learn and practise the arts of civilization,

because we received that gift, sent down from the castle in heaven,

which is lacking in four-footed creatures that stare at the ground. To them,

when the world began, our common creator granted no more

than the breath of life; to us, a soul as well. He intended

that our fellow-feeling should lead us to ask and offer help;