On Duties 2.29 — Cicero (on the Stoics)

Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 2.29

And never will the seed and occasion of civil war be wanting, so long as villains remember that bloodstained spear and hope to see another. As Publius Sulla wielded that spear, when his kinsman was dictator, so again thirty-six years later he did not shrink from a still more criminal spear. And still another Sulla, who was a mere clerk under the former dictatorship, was under the later one a city quaestor. From this, one would realize that, if such rewards are offered, civil wars will never cease to be. And so in Rome only the walls of her houses remain standing—and even they wait now in fear of the most unspeakable crimes—but our republic we have lost for ever. But to return to my subject: it is while we have preferred to be the object of fear rather than of love and affection, that all these misfortunes have fallen upon us. And if such retribution could overtake the Roman People for their injustice and tyranny, what ought private individuals to expect? And since it is manifest that the power of good-will is so great and that of fear is so weak, it remains for us to discuss by what means we can most readily win the affection, linked with honour and confidence, which we desire.