Saudi Arabia is an expansive territory bounded by sandy plains and maritime borders, whose inhabitants, gorged on massive revenues from petroleum, display an abundance of goods and a taste for luxury far exceeding any regard for military discipline. Bordering it to the south lies Yemen, a rugged and mountainous land held in large part by an armed Shia tribal confederacy known as the Houthis. In recent days, as the daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung reports, renewed warfare between the two peoples has brought disaster directly into the kingdom's own seat of power.

Die Saturni ante diem IV Idus Octobres, missilibus ballisticis e Iemenia emissis, aëroportus regius Khalid, qui secundo loco post Geddam commeatu totius regni continetur, in ipso capite regni, Riado, percussus est. Tredecim homines interfecti sunt, amplius trecenti vulnerati, cum tecta aedificiorum conlaberentur et fumus cruorque loca publica complerent. Neque hoc unum fuit telum: nam die Iovis priore tres cives ceciderant, et die Solis insequente alio missili coniecto unus homo vitam amisit, dum Saudiani naves aërias Sanaam Iemeniae urbem petere iubent. Quibus rebus commoti magistratus aëroportum civilem claudere coacti sunt, dum barbari montani omnes gentes hortantur ut aëra Arabicum devitent.

On Saturday, the fourth day before the Ides of October, ballistic missiles launched from Yemen struck King Khalid Royal Airport—the kingdom's second hub of traffic after Jeddah—in the very heart of the capital of Riyadh. Thirteen people were killed and more than three hundred wounded as ceiling panels collapsed and public halls filled with smoke and blood. Nor was this a solitary strike: on the preceding Thursday three citizens had perished, and on the following Sunday another projectile took a life, even as the Saudis ordered airstrikes against Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. Shaken by these developments, the authorities were forced to shut down the civilian airport, while the mountain tribesmen publicly urged foreign nations to steer clear of Arabian airspace.

Caesar, cognita loci natura et genere pugnae, animadvertit quanta sit inter opes et virtutem dissimilitudo. Regnum enim Arabicum aerarium habet tam amplum ut vix ulli reges maiora stipendia aut plura tormenta aëria trans Oceanum emant; nihilominus aëroportus suos, unde commeatus et hospites pendent, contra repentina pericula munire non potest. Montani autem, quamquam annis continuis et a Saudiana classe et ab Americanorum missilibus petiti sunt, neque animos demiserunt neque tela conicere desierunt; et nuper angustias Bab al-Mandab ad tempus ceperant, ut terrorem classibus inicerent.

Caesar, having surveyed the terrain and the nature of the fighting, notes the vast gulf between wealth and valor. The Arabian kingdom commands a treasury so immense that scarcely any kings purchase heavier munitions or more advanced aerial batteries across the Ocean; nevertheless, it cannot protect its own terminals, on which its commerce and foreign visitors depend, against sudden strikes. The mountaineers, on the other hand, though subjected for years to continuous bombardments by the Saudi fleet and American missiles, have neither broken their resolve nor ceased their fires; indeed, they recently seized the straits of Bab al-Mandab for a time, striking terror into shipping lanes.

Interim Mahometus bin Salman regulus, cum intellegeret se terrestri acie in montes Iemeniae proprios milites mittere non audere, ad externas societates confugit. Foedus Meccanum cum Turcia et Pakistania nuper compositum excitavit, atque a Syria quoque auxilia flagitare conatus est. Sed haec omnia spe magis quam re geruntur: Turcis enim nondum senatusconsulto foedus ratum est, Pakistania militum sanguinem pro alieno regno profundere constanter recusat, et Donaldus Trump, praeses Americanorum, cum primo impetu se ultionem examinaturum pollicitus esset, a novo bello suscipiendo animum avertere videtur.

Meanwhile Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aware that he dares not commit his own legions into the mountains of Yemen on foot, has turned to foreign alliances. He invoked the newly concluded Mecca Pact with Turkey and Pakistan, and even attempted to solicit auxiliary forces from Syria. But these maneuvers rest more on hope than on reality: the Turkish assembly has not yet ratified the treaty, Pakistan steadily refuses to spill its soldiers' blood on behalf of a foreign realm, and Donald Trump, the American president, after promising in an initial reaction to examine an expedition of reprisal, appears disinclined to take up a new war.

Dum haec ad portas fiunt, multitudo civium Riadi summa levitate atque inertia vivit. In tabernis urbis nobilissimis conveniunt, ridere pergunt et omnia celeriter transactum iri credunt; alii, dum muri ipsius aëroportus fumo obducuntur, certaminibus pediludii inter duas factiones intenti sunt et ludis magis quam bello favent. Idem enim evenit quod semper in opulentis rebus accidere solet: fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt, et calamitatem longius distare putant quam re vera distat.

While these things unfold at the gates, the mass of Riyadh's citizenry carries on with the utmost levity and ease. They gather in the capital's fashionable cafes, smiling and trusting that the disturbance will swiftly blow over; others, while the airport walls are shrouded in smoke, watch soccer matches between rival factions and care far more for spectacles than for war. For the same outcome occurs that always attend opulent societies: men generally believe what they want to believe, and imagine disaster to be much farther off than it truly is.

Quae res non solum securitatem, sed ipsam dignitatem regis funditus labefactat. Mahometus enim conventum mercatorum et divitum totius orbis, quem Arabico more 'Davos in deserto' appellant, his ipsis diebus convocavit, ut auri flumina in novam regni gloriam confluerent. At legati et negotiatores, missilibus super capita volitantibus et stationibus conclusis, fidem ac fiduciam facile amittunt; mercatura enim stabilitatem petit, non fumum cadentium tectorum.

This state of affairs undermines not merely the kingdom's security, but the sovereign's very standing. Mohammed had summoned an assembly of international merchants and financiers, known colloquially as 'Davos in the desert,' for this very month, seeking to draw rivers of gold into his realm's newfound glory. But envoys and traders, with missiles flying overhead and transport terminals shut down, quickly lose faith and confidence; commerce demands stability, not the smoke of collapsing ceilings.

Caesar existimat nullum regnum sola pecunia aut aëriis missilibus ab aspero montano hoste defendi posse, si cives laborem militarem fugiunt et aliena auxilia mendicant. Frustra enim turres eriguntur et aurum hostibus ostenditur, ubi deest manus quae ferrum gerat: nam qui hostem procul tantum missilibus verberat, eum non vincit, sed ad maiorem audaciam provocat.

Caesar judges that no kingdom can be defended from a rugged mountain adversary by treasury or aerial missiles alone, if its citizens shun the toil of military service and beg for foreign auxiliaries. Towers are raised and gold is displayed to the enemy in vain when there is no hand to wield the iron: for he who merely bombards his foe from afar does not conquer him, but incites him to greater audacity.

In the year 2779 from the founding of the city, Monday, the fourth day before the Ides of October. Donald Trump, president of the Americans, enjoined peace upon the world under a fresh pretense. Yesterday morning, as Euronews and overseas dispatches report, he declared by a public broadcast that an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia was effective immediately: both parties had agreed; let no one violate the pact. These were imperious words, such as the despots of the East once hurled from their tribunals. Yet in Moscow there was profound silence; in Kyiv, only astonishment and slaughter.

Neque enim ignota erant arcana consilii. Bellum in Irania recens conflatum olei inopiam et pretiorum caritatem intulerat; instabant comitia media, ubi civium suffragia ob caritatem annonae trepidabant. Duobus ante diebus idem princeps commercium gasolei cum Russis laxari iusserat, ut pretia domi deprimeret. Id vulgo indignabantur socii; septem quoque senatores Washingtoniae, quorum quattuor e partibus ipsius erant, foedus illicitum damnaverant; Marcus Carney, primus minister Canadensis, aperte monuerat eam pactionem paci Europae repugnare. Remedium ergo tumultui quaesitum: indutias fingere, ut commercium honestaretur.

Nor were the hidden motives of the policy obscure. The war recently ignited in Iran had caused oil shortages and sharp price spikes; midterm elections were at hand, where the votes of citizens wavered under the rising cost of daily grain. Two days earlier, the same ruler had decreed an easing of the trade in diesel fuel with Russia to suppress prices at home. This the allies openly resented; seven senators in Washington as well, four of them from his own faction, denounced the agreement as unlawful; Mark Carney, prime minister of Canada, warned plainly that this arrangement stood in direct opposition to peace in Europe. A cure for the uproar was therefore sought: to feign a truce, that commerce might be justified.

Sed dum verba per auras volant, ferrum terram petit. Volodymyrus Zelenskyj vix mirari desierat, cum stationes electricae Kioviae et Charcoviae missilibus ictae conruerunt. Urbibus luce et calore privatis, praeses Ucrainae nuntiavit totum diem caelum infestum fuisse fucis volantibus quos 'shahed' vocant, ex Perside oriundis. Hostis scilicet, quem consensisse Trump gloriabatur, ictibus potius quam legatis responderat. Nullo pacto constiterant arma; sonus tantum vocis mutatus erat.

Yet while words flew through the air, iron sought the earth. Volodymyr Zelenskyy had scarcely ceased to marvel when power plants in Kyiv and Kharkiv collapsed under missile strikes. With the cities deprived of light and warmth, the president of Ukraine reported that the skies all day had been infested with the winged drones called 'shaheds', designed in Persia. The enemy, whom Trump boasted had agreed, answered with strikes rather than envoys. Weapons had not halted in any way; only the sound of a voice had changed.

Accedebat contumelia in socios. Rogatus de reprehensionibus pridie eius diei, Trump palam edixerat tempus esse ut Ucraina novum crearet praesidem, qui bellum componere nosset. Cui Zelenskyj per nuntios respondit non alieni imperatoris sed civium suorum esse magistratus creare; traderet quin potius hostis sexaginta dierum veram quietem, et comitia mature habituros. Sic contemptus adrogantia ultro retorquebatur.

To this was added an insult directed at allies. Asked about the criticism on the preceding day, Trump declared publicly that it was time for Ukraine to obtain a new president who would know how to settle the war. To him Zelenskyy replied through the media that it belonged not to an alien commander but to his own citizens to choose magistrates; let the enemy rather grant sixty days of total ceasefire, and they would hold elections forthwith. Thus arrogance was hurled back against contempt.

Europaei autem duces ancipites inter metum et assentationem agebant. Ursula von der Leyen et Andy Burnham Britannus pacis nomen collaudabant, spem ostentantes ubi nihil certum erat; Emmanuel Macron, quamquam veras indutias foveri cupiebat, fateri coactus est Russiam ictus auxisse; Germanus administer Johann Wadephul societatis fidem confirmabat. Misera legatorum condicio: coguntur fingere se credere iis quae fieri non vident, ne potentioris iram moveant.

The European leaders, meanwhile, acted dubiously between fear and flattery. Ursula von der Leyen and Andy Burnham of Britain praised the name of peace, parading hope where nothing was certain; Emmanuel Macron, though he desired a true ceasefire, was forced to admit that Russia had intensified its strikes; German minister Johann Wadephul affirmed his fidelity to the alliance. A pitiable condition for envoys: they are compelled to pretend to believe what they do not see happening, lest they provoke the anger of the stronger man.

Hic rerum status fuit: species pacis domi vendita, vis belli in finibus retenta. Quod maiores nostri sciebant, saeculum nostrum discere recusat: non edictis magistratuum coerceri ferrum, ubi barbarus videt metum in venditore et compendium in simulatione.

This was the state of affairs: the appearance of peace sold at home, the reality of war preserved on the frontier. What our ancestors knew, our age refuses to learn: that the sword is not checked by the edicts of magistrates, when the barbarian sees fear in the seller and profit in the deception.

How long, I ask you, will the lust for dominion abuse the forbearance of our laws? How far will the audacity of those men advance who imagine they are permitted not to safeguard the commonwealth, but to sack it? For what took place across the Ocean in recent days, as UPI reports, if not a criminal plundering of the treasury and the most barefaced electoral corruption—crimes that our ancestors would have visited with the sternest penalties?

Etenim Jennifer Rochon, iudex districtus meridionalis Novi Eboraci, edicto suo intercedere coacta est, ne pecunia a civibus tributa ad praeconia televisifica spargenda adhiberetur, quibus Donaldus Trump laudaretur et comitia media instigarentur. Vicies centena milia sestertium—immo vero viginti milia milium nummorum illorum transmarinorum—quae comitia populi ad fines custodiendos et ad publicam salutem tuendam adsignaverant, a procuratoribus Domus Albae in hunc privatae laudis apparatum nefario consilio translata esse arguuntur. Egone taceam, cum videam custodiam finium nudari ut consulis unius imago in tabulis publicis emineat?

Indeed, Jennifer Rochon, a judge of the Southern District of New York, was compelled to intervene by court order to prevent money extracted from the taxpayers from being squandered on television broadcasts celebrating Donald Trump and stoking the midterm elections. Twenty million of those overseas dollars—funds earmarked by the people's assembly for guarding the borders and defending public security—are alleged to have been diverted by White House officials into this apparatus of personal glorification with scandalous intent. Shall I remain silent while I watch the defense of the frontiers stripped bare so that the likeness of a single magistrate may loom large on the public boards?

Quid est aliud aliis sua eripere, aliis dare aliena? Hoc enim semper feneratores, hoc perditi cives, hoc Catilinae satellites moliti sunt: ut pecunia publica in propriam largitionem converteretur. Atqui asseverant defensores eius non ambitum esse, sed publicam quandam cohortationem qua cives moneantur ut patriam diligant! O di immortales! ubinam gentium sumus? Quis umquam tam insulsam excusationem audivit? Patriam videlicet diligere nemo potest nisi praesidis faciem contemplatus, et id quidem pecunia de fisco rapta! Addunt etiam ipsum hoc tempore candidatum non esse. Quasi vero non omnium intersit comitiorum aequitas, aut quasi non clamare suffragatoribus soleat, ut ipsum in aliorum personis eligant.

What else is this but to take away what belongs to some and give it to others? This was ever the aim of the usurers, of ruined citizens, of Catiline's accomplices: to convert the public treasury into private bribery. Yet his defenders assert that this is no campaign spending, but a public admonition urging citizens to love their fatherland! Immortal gods! Where in the world are we? Who ever heard so absurd an excuse? Can no one love his country, forsooth, without gazing upon the face of the president—and that financed by plunder from the public purse? They add that he is not even a candidate on the ballot at this time. As if the fairness of the assembly did not touch all citizens, or as if he had not repeatedly urged voters to pretend he was running in the person of others!

Numquam, cum consul rem publicam gessi, aerarium sanctius haberi passus sum quam cum leges ipsas defenderem. Meministis enim qua severitate quaestores ad rationes adduxerim, quanto studio improbos a publico sequestraverim. Aerarium est nervus civitatis; quod si semel patuerit unius magistratus arbitrio, ut ex eo largitiones in populum pro sua factione effundat, actum est de suffragiis liberis, actum de libertate ipsa. Iure igitur et optimo consilio societas illa custodum et operariorum collegium ad praetorem confugerunt, damnum irreparabile et maiestatis laesionem contestantes.

Never, when I guided the state as consul, did I allow the treasury to be held more sacred than when defending the laws themselves. You remember the severity with which I summoned the quaestors to balance their books, and the zeal with which I kept corrupt men away from the commonwealth's accounts. The treasury is the sinew of the state; if it is once thrown open to the whim of a single magistrate to pour forth largesse for his faction, free suffrage is done for, and liberty itself is finished. Rightly and with sound judgment, therefore, did that watchdog coalition and the labor union flee to the magistrate, demonstrating irreparable harm and a betrayal of the public trust.

Quid enim distat inter eum qui pecuniam in campo Martio per sodalicia dividit, et eum qui machinatione imperii utens aerarium populi in sua praeconia transfundit? Ille quidem parva manu delinquit; hic vero totius rei publicae censu suffragia corrumpit. Haec est ambitus novissima species, eo gravior et pestilentior, quo maiore potestate armata est. At leges vigent; nam, ut iudex illa recte iudicavit, aequitatis libra et salus publica flagitabant ut haec nefaria profusio statim interdiceretur.

For what difference is there between a man who distributes bribes in the Campus Martius through unlawful electoral clubs, and one who uses the machinery of supreme command to funnel the people's treasury into his own advertisements? The former offends with petty sums; the latter corrupts the franchise with the entire wealth of the republic. This is the newest species of electoral bribery, all the more grievous and pestilential because it is armed with the highest power. But the laws still stand; for as that judge rightly decreed, the scales of equity and the public interest demanded that this shameful squandering be halted at once.

Quam ob rem, si qua fides, si qua constantia in iudiciis manet, cavendum est ne haec licentia diutius grassetur. Custodiantur fines imperii iis opibus quas leges destinaverunt; non enim ad unius viri gloriam sed ad communem utilitatem tributa penduntur. Cedant ergo privatae cupiditates sanctitati tabularum publicarum, et discant omnes, quantumvis potentes, aerarium populi non esse principis patrimonium.

Wherefore, if any good faith, if any constancy remains in the courts, we must ensure that such license spreads no further. Let the borders of the nation be guarded with the very funds the law provided; for taxes are not paid for the personal glory of one man, but for the common good. Let private ambitions yield to the sanctity of public accounts, and let all men learn, however powerful they may be, that the people's treasury is not the private estate of a ruler.

If one of our ancestors, Conscript Fathers, were to cross the Ocean today and arrive in the city the Americans call Washington, what would he see first? A Capitol, a Senate, an eagle, the fasces: everything ours, everything Roman. Nor is that surprising. For the men who founded that republic had read our books and followed our examples; they even had their own Cincinnatus, who laid down his command when the war was won and went home to his farm. I praise them, Conscript Fathers, and I congratulate them: no nation has ever imitated us more diligently.

Sed — videte quam cito laus in querelam vertatur — unam rem, et eam maximam, non imitati sunt. Nos, cum reges expulissemus, imperium non uni sed duobus dedimus, neque in perpetuum sed in annum. Collegam collegae opposuimus, ut alter alterius cupiditatem intercessione cohiberet; annum finem posuimus, ut qui hodie imperaret, cras privatus rationem redderet. Americani autem unum consulem habent, collegam nullum; neque eum in annum creant, sed in quadriennium.

But — observe how quickly praise turns to complaint — one thing, and that the greatest, they did not imitate. When we drove out the kings, we gave supreme command not to one man but to two, and not for life but for a year. We set colleague against colleague, so that each might check the other’s ambition with his veto; we made the year its limit, so that the man who commanded today would tomorrow, as a private citizen, render his account. The Americans, however, have one consul and no colleague; nor do they elect him for a year, but for four.

Quid hic consul solus potest? Exercitibus imperat terra marique; legatos mittit et recipit; edicta proponit quae prope vim legum habent; et quibus vult, iis ignoscit, etiam damnatis. Nos ius provocationis populo dedimus, ne cuiquam civi indicta causa caput adimeretur; illi ius ignoscendi uni homini tradiderunt. Quid est hoc, patres conscripti, nisi regnum cui finis praescriptus est?

What can this solitary consul do? He commands armies on land and sea; he sends and receives ambassadors; he issues edicts that have almost the force of law; and whomever he wishes he pardons, even the condemned. We gave the people the right of appeal, so that no citizen should lose his life without a trial; they have handed the right of pardon to a single man. What is this, Conscript Fathers, if not a kingship with an expiry date?

At populus eum creat, dicet aliquis. Creat, fateor. Sed quo modo? Tanta largitione, tanta pecunia, tanta ambitione, ut, si quis apud nos tantum in comitia profudisset, lege Tullia, quam ego consul tuli, decem annos in exsilio viveret. Audio candidatos illic non per tribus et centurias suffragia petere, sed per tabellas lucentes quae in omnium manibus sunt, die noctuque, sine modo, sine pudore. Ego, cum consulatum peterem — homo novus, nullis maiorum imaginibus — ita petivi ut nemo me suffragia emisse dicere posset.

“But the people elect him,” someone will say. They do, I admit it. But how? With such lavish handouts, such sums of money, such canvassing, that if anyone among us had poured as much into an election, under the Tullian law — which I carried as consul — he would be living ten years in exile. I hear that candidates there do not seek votes tribe by tribe and century by century, but through the glowing tablets that are in everyone’s hands, day and night, without limit, without shame. When I stood for the consulship — a new man, with no ancestral masks in my hall — I sought it in such a way that no one could say I had bought a single vote.

Neque tamen desperandum est. Senatus illorum adhuc sedet; iudicia adhuc iudicant; populus adhuc suffragia fert; scriptores adhuc libere — interdum nimis libere — loquuntur. Res publica quae suam aegritudinem sentit, nondum mortua est. Nostra non uno die periit, sed multis diebus neglegentiae: cum boni tacerent, cum populus largitione corrumperetur, cum singuli homines plus possent quam leges.

And yet we must not despair. Their Senate still sits; their courts still judge; their people still vote; their writers still speak freely — at times too freely. A republic that can feel its own sickness is not yet dead. Ours did not perish in a single day, but through many days of neglect: while good men kept silent, while the people were corrupted by handouts, while individual men grew more powerful than the laws.

Itaque, patres conscripti, ego, qui consul rem publicam sine armis servavi, hoc consilium Americanis do, quod maiores nostri nobis dederunt: date consuli collegam; date imperio annum; neve cui uni liceat quod ceteris non licet. Columnas nostras satis imitati estis. Nunc imitamini annum.

And so, Conscript Fathers, I — who as consul saved the Republic without taking up arms — offer the Americans the counsel our ancestors gave us: give your consul a colleague; give his command a single year; and let no one man be allowed what all others are denied. You have copied our columns well enough. Now copy our year.

You write to me, Lucilius, that everyone among you now owns little machines that speak: ask them and they answer, order them and they write, consult them and they advise; and that nothing is so obscure that they cannot explain it at once. You are delighted, I see, and you want me to be delighted too. I shall be, once I have learned what you gain by it. In the meantime I ask one thing only: when it speaks, who falls silent?

Meministi Calvisium Sabinum, de quo olim tibi scripsi: hominem divitem, cui et patrimonium libertini erat et ingenium, memoria autem tam mala ut illi nomen modo Ulixis excideret, modo Achillis. Hic, ut eruditus videretur, servos magno emit, unum qui Homerum teneret, alterum qui Hesiodum; novem praeterea lyricis singulos assignavit. Deinde inter cenam versus ab illis subici iubebat, et saepe in medio verbo excidebat. Ridebamus. Nunc, mi Lucili, omnes Calvisii sumus.

You remember Calvisius Sabinus, of whom I once wrote to you: a rich man, with a freedman’s fortune and a freedman’s mind, and a memory so poor that the name of Ulysses would slip away from him, and then that of Achilles. Wishing to seem learned, he bought slaves at great expense — one to know Homer by heart, another Hesiod — and assigned one apiece to the nine lyric poets. Then at dinner he had them prompt him with verses, and he would often break off in the middle of a word. We laughed. Now, my Lucilius, every one of us is Calvisius.

Cum Sabinus gloriaretur singulos servos sibi centenis milibus sestertium constare, Satellius Quadratus, homo dicax, “Minoris,” inquit, “totidem scrinia emisses.” Scrinia nunc loquuntur, Lucili: hoc solum novi est; cetera vetera. Nam bona mens nec commodatur nec emitur. Quod machina tua scit, non tu scis; quod servus tuus meminit, non tu meministi. Possessio est ista, non scientia — et quidem aliena, quam fortuna, cum primum voluerit, auferet et te nudum relinquet.

When Sabinus boasted that each slave had cost him a hundred thousand sesterces, Satellius Quadratus, a man with a sharp tongue, remarked: “For less, you could have bought as many bookcases.” Now the bookcases talk, Lucilius: that is the only new thing; all the rest is old. For a sound mind can be neither borrowed nor bought. What your machine knows, you do not know; what your slave remembers, you do not remember. That is a possession, not knowledge — and someone else’s possession at that, which Fortune will take away whenever she pleases, and leave you naked.

Varro noster instrumentum agrorum in tria genera divisit: mutum, ut plaustra; semivocale, ut boves; vocale, ut servos. Vos quartum quoddam genus invenistis: instrumentum quod loquitur neque tamen homo est, quodque tam blande servit ut dominetur. Vide quam facile id fiat. Primo rogas quid scribendum sit; deinde quid sentiendum; postremo ne rogas quidem. “Nulla servitus turpior est quam voluntaria”: hoc tibi olim scripsi, cum de servis nostris quaereremus — et de nobis ipsis. Numquam putavi id tam cito verum fore.

Our Varro divided the equipment of a farm into three kinds: the mute, like carts; the half-voiced, like oxen; and the voiced, like slaves. You have discovered a fourth kind: a tool that speaks yet is not a man, and that serves so sweetly that it rules. See how easily it happens. First you ask it what to write; then what to think; at last you no longer even ask. “No slavery is more shameful than the voluntary kind”: I wrote that to you once, when we were considering our slaves — and ourselves. I never imagined it would come true so soon.

Non te iubeo machinam abicere. Sapiens divitiis utitur, non servit; ita et hac utere, sed ut instrumento, non ut magistro. Rogato eam de itineribus, de numeris, de rebus quae sciri possunt et oblivisci; de vita autem, de morte, de virtute noli rogare. Haec enim nemo pro te discere potest, non magis quam pro te mori.

I do not bid you throw the machine away. The wise man uses riches; he is not their slave. Use this too — but as a tool, not as a teacher. Ask it about roads, about numbers, about things that can be known and then forgotten; but about life, about death, about virtue, ask it nothing. These no one can learn on your behalf, any more than anyone can die on your behalf.

Sed ut huius quoque epistulae aliquod munus sit: hodie apud Epicurum hoc inveni — non per machinam, sed legendo. “Si cui sua non videntur amplissima, licet totius mundi dominus sit, tamen miser est.” Adiciam ipse: qui omnia per alium scit, nihil suum habet. Vale.

But so that this letter, too, may bring you some gift: today I found this in Epicurus — not through a machine, but by reading. “Whoever does not regard what he has as ample wealth is wretched, though he be master of the whole world.” I add one of my own: he who knows everything through another owns nothing of his own. Farewell.

I saw a ship to which flying ships return like birds to a nest: one such vessel can do more than my entire fleet at Actium. I was astonished, I admit it. Then I went ashore and saw a bridge no one had repaired in forty years. Among us, an aedile who tolerated that would never be elected again.

While these things were going on at Rome, Caesar was informed that the Gauls had once again deposed the head of their council. On learning this, and fearing the instability of the Gauls — for they are fickle in their decisions and generally eager for revolution — he judged that nothing whatever should be entrusted to them.

I once wrote that among the Germans good customs counted for more than good laws elsewhere. Now they have laws in abundance. Of customs, nothing is said.

“We go into the bowels of the earth and seek riches in the abode of the dead” — I wrote that about gold. You now dig for metals whose very names I never knew, so that your tablets may glow and your chariots run without horses. I admire the ingenuity; the greed I recognise. Nature, mother of all things, has seen nothing new — only faster digging.

Our ancestors held it so, and set it down in their laws: the thief to be fined double, the usurer fourfold. You install your usurers in temples and worship their ledgers.

Ceterum censeo aes alienum esse delendum.

Furthermore, I hold that the debt must be destroyed.

Say to yourself at dawn: today I shall meet angry headlines, idle rumours, and outcries over things no one will remember within the year. All of it hangs on opinion. Remove the opinion, and the complaint is removed.

The people that once bestowed commands, fasces, legions, everything, now holds itself in and anxiously longs for just two things: bread and circuses. I wrote that of the Roman mob. But you have invented what not even Nero managed: bread that comes to the door by itself, and circuses watched from bed. The people lies down, and rules by lying down.

It is the colours they cheer for, the colours they love; and if, in the middle of the race, the colours were swapped, their passion and their favour would cross over with them. The Whites of Madrid have won again; no one is the better for it.

Every building must be made with regard to strength, utility and beauty. Your glass towers roast in summer, freeze in winter, and in every season look exactly like one another. You ignored the orientation to the sky, the first thing I told every architect to observe — and then you buy with machines the coolness the sun would have given you for nothing.

As Jugurtha left Rome, he looked back at it several times in silence, and at last is said to have exclaimed: “A city for sale — and doomed to perish swiftly, if it ever finds a buyer!” In Washington the buyers now stand in the Senate’s own lobbies, write their names on the register, and call themselves “representatives”.