Page:A Vindication of Natural Society - Burke (1756).djvu/35

 full Scope; and the Streets of Athens were not the only ones which ran with Blood. At this Period, the Sword, glutted with foreign Slaughter, turned it's Edge upon the Bowels of the Roman Republick itself; and presented a Scene of Cruelties and Treasons enough almost to obliterate the Memory of all the external Devastations. I intended, my, to have proceeded in a sort of Method in estimating the Numbers of Mankind cut off in these Wars which we have on Record. But I am obliged to alter my Design. Such a tragical Uniformity of Havock and Murder would disgust your Lordship as much as it would me; and I confess I already feel my eyes ake by keeping them so long intent on so bloody a Prospect. I shall observe little on the Servile, the Social, the Gallic, and Spanish Wars; nor upon those with Jugurtha, nor Antiochus, nor many others equally important, and carried on with equal Fury. The Butcheries of Julius Cæsar alone, are calculated by