<head>Tarentum</head><head>III. Affairs of Sicily</head><head>The Spoils of Syracuse</head>A city is not adorned by external splendours, but by the virtue of its inhabitants. . . .
The Romans, then, decided for this reason to transfer all these objects to their own city and leave nothing behind.
As to whether in doing so they acted rightly and in their own interest or the reverse, there is much to be said on both sides, but the more weighty arguments are in favour of their conduct having been wrong then and still being wrong.
For if they had originally relied on such things for the advancement of their country, they would evidently have been right in bringing to their home the kind of things which had contributed to their aggrandizement.
But if, on the contrary, while leading the simplest of lives, very far removed from all such superfluous magnificence, they were constantly victorious over those who possessed the greatest number and finest examples of such works, must we not consider that they committed a mistake?
To abandon the habits of the victors and to imitate those of the conquered, not only appropriating the objects, but at the same time attracting that envy which is inseparable from their possession, which is the one thing most to be dreaded by superiors in power, is surely an incontestable error.
For in no case is one who contemplates such works of art moved so much by admiration of the good fortune of those who have possessed themselves of the property of others, as by pity as well as envy for the original owners.
And when opportunities become ever more frequent, and the victor collects around him all the treasures of other peoples, and these treasures may be almost said to invite those who were robbed of them to come and inspect them, things are twice as bad.
For now spectators no longer pity their neighbours, but themselves, as they recall to mind their own calamities.
And hence not only envy, but a sort of passionate hatred for the favourites of fortune flares up, for the memories awakened of their own disaster move them to abhor the authors of it.
There were indeed perhaps good reasons for appropriating all the gold and silver: for it was impossible for them to aim at a world empire without weakening the resources of other peoples and strengthening their own.
But it was possible for them to leave everything which did not contribute to such strength, together with the envy attached to its possession, in its original place, and to add to the glory of their native city by adorning it not with paintings and reliefs but with dignity and magnanimity.
At any rate these remarks will serve to teach all those who succeed to empire, that they should not strip cities under the idea that the misfortunes of others are an ornament to their own country. The Romans on the present occasion, after transferring all these objects to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a>, used such as came from private houses to embellish their own homes, and those that were state property for their public buildings.
Walbank Commentary