47.5008
But if that snake was not a
present
deity,
says my opponent, why, after its arrival,
was the
violence of the
plague overcome, and
health restored to the
Roman people? We, too, on the other
hand, bring forward
the
question, If, according to the books of the fates and the responses
of the seers, the
god Æsculapius was ordered to be invited to the
city, that he might cause it to be
safe and sound from the contagion of
the
plague and of pestilential
diseases, and came without spurning
the proposal contemptuously, as you say, changed into the form
of
serpents,—why has the
Roman state been so often
afflicted with
such disasters, so often at one time and another torn, harassed, and
diminished by
thousands, through the
destruction of its
citizens times
without number? For since the
god is said to have been summoned
for this purpose, that he might drive away utterly all the causes by
which
pestilence was excited, it followed that the
state should be
safe, and should be always maintained free from pestilential blasts,
and unharmed. But yet we see, as was said before, that it has
over and over again had
seasons made mournful by these
diseases, and
that the manly vigour of its people has been shattered and weakened by
no slight losses. Where, then, was Æsculapius? where that
deliverer promised by venerable
oracles? Why, after
temples were built, and
shrines reared to him, did he allow a
state
deserving his favour to be any longer plague-stricken, when he had been
summoned for this purpose, that he should cure the diseases which were
raging, and not allow anything of the sort which might be dreaded to steal on
them afterwards?
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
