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‘They make a solitude and call it peace’
Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace.
how does a state rehabilitate its former enemies; and does opening up membership of a state or society to non-natives strengthen or dilute its blood and character?
The root purpose of the empire was to funnel wealth to be spent in Rome: in that sense it was a racket based on rampant exploitation. Yet through the promise of citizenship – a share in the plunder – conquered aristocrats could usually be brought onside.
‘Those which the sword spares without, famine ravages within,’
‘Britain has kings, but they are tyrants: she has judges, but they are unrighteous men’.
laws as well as glorified with arms, that there may be good government in times both of war and of peace.’