Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/255

Rh were founded. The parched Carthaginian, and the naked Lybian, saw certain virtues, which had hitherto been unknown, flourish in their soil.

"The rigid integrity which is characteristic of a republican heart, shone in these colonies as at Rome. Proud of the glorious title of a Roman, each individual, whatever might be his age or condition, sought to merit, by his heroical exploits, the honour which that name conferred on him. The matron, content in the retirement of a disabused time of life, looked forward with anxiety to the relation of the military prowess of her sons. The wedded female had no other delight than that of rearing the fruits of her conjugal tenderness, and moulding them into good citizens. The damsel, full of innocence, was a stranger to love until the happy moment when Hymen revealed to her its mysterious secrets. She fancied that this sentiment was merely a recompense due to the valour of some youthful lover, who viewed her with impassioned eyes when he returned from the war laden with the spoils of the enemy.

"The frailty and inconstancy inherent in our miserable species, were too powerful for the virtue even of the Romans, and operated a change in these fine principles. Riches and voluptuousness were the fatal instruments; and the degeneracy of the colonies found its punishment in the moral and physical calamities which supervened.

"Enriched by the treasures of Annon, Amilcar, Syphax, and the other subjugated kings and generals, the Romans began to view with disgust the severity of the ancient customs they had brought from Europe. Frankness, sobriety, valour, and constancy, were virtues which gradually became relaxed, and yielded at length to dissimulation, rioting, frivolity, and sloth