It passes by no time of life, makes exception of no class of men. Some races by the blessing of poverty know nothing of luxury; some because they are restless and wandering have escaped sloth; the uncivilized state of some and their rustic mode of life keep them strangers to trickery and deception and all the evil that the forum breeds. But there lives no race that does not feel the goad of anger, which masters alike both Greeks and barbarians, and is no less ruinous to those who respect the law than to those who make might the only measure of their right. Lastly, though the other vices lay hold of individual men, this is the only passion that can at times possess a whole state. No entire people has ever burned with love for a woman, no whole state has set its hope upon money or gain; ambition is personal and seizes upon the individual; only fury is an affliction of a whole people. Often in a single mass they rush into anger; men and women, old men and boys, the gentry and the rabble, are all in full accord, and the united body, inflamed by a very few incendiary words, outdoes the incendiary himself; they fly forthwith to fire and sword, and proclaim war against their neighbors or wage it against their countrymen; whole houses are consumed, root and branch, and the man who but lately was held in high esteem and applauded for his eloquence receives now the anger of his following; legions hurl their javelins upon their own commanders; all the commoners are at discord with the nobles; the senate, the high council of the state, without waiting to levy troops, without appointing a commander, chooses impromptu agents of its wrath, and hunting down its high-born victims throughout the houses of the city, takes punishment in its own hand; embassies are outraged, the law of nations is broken, and unheard of madness sweeps the state, and no time is given for the public ferment to subside, but fleets are launched forthwith and loaded with hastily gathered troops; without training, without auspices, under the leadership of its own anger, the populace goes forth, snatching up for arms whatever chance has offered, and then atones for the rash daring of its anger by a great disaster. Such is the outcome, when barbarians rush haphazard into war; the moment their excitable minds are roused by the semblance of injury, they are forthwith in action, and where their resentment draws them, like an avalanche they fall upon our legions — all unorganized, unfearful, and unguarded, seeking their own destruction; with joy they are struck down, or press forward upon the sword, or thrust their bodies upon the spear, or perish from a self-made wound.