Some writers have wasted their efforts in narrating the doings of 5 foreign kings, and in telling, as the case may be, the sufferings or the cruelties of nations. Surely it is wiser to try to end one’s own ills than to record for a coming generation the ills of others. How much better to make one’s theme the works of the gods than the robberies of Philip, or Alexander, or the other conquerors who earned their fame by the destruction of mankind! Such men were as truly scourges of humanity as a flood by which a whole plain has been inundated, or a conflagration by which the greater part of its living creatures has been burnt up. The historians tell us how Hannibal 6 crossed the Alps, how he suddenly transferred into Italy a war rendered more formidable by Roman disasters in Spain; how, when his fortunes were shattered, more determined still, even though the fate of Carthage was sealed, he wandered through all kingdoms, offering to be leader against Rome, and begging for an army; how he never ceased even in his old age to seek to rouse up war in every corner of the world. He could, it was plain, endure to be without a country, but not without a foe. How much better is it to inquire what ought to be done than what 7 has been done, and to teach those who have entrusted their state to fortune that nothing she gives is stable, but that all her gifts are more fickle than the very air! For she cannot rest, her delight is to match sadness with joy, and to mingle smiles with tears. Therefore in the day of prosperity let no man exult, in the day of adversity let no man faint: the successions of fortune alternate. Why should you boast yourself? The wave meantime bears you aloft on its crest; but where 8 it may strand you, you cannot tell. Its end will be of its own choice, not of yours. Or why, again, do you despond? You have been carried down to the nadir; now is the chance of rising again. Adversity alters for the better, success for the worse. Changes of the kind must be anticipated, not merely in private families, which are affected by a slight cause, but also in sovereign houses. Dynasties rising from the gutter have ere now established themselves above the ruling powers, while ancient empires have fallen when in the very heyday of their 9 power. The number cannot be reckoned of the kingdoms that have been overthrown by other kingdoms. God now makes it His special aim to exalt some and to overthrow others; nor does He let them gently down, but dashes them from their pinnacle, so that no remnant of them is left. A great sight it is; we think it so only because we are ourselves small. There are many departments in which the standard is not derived from 10 the actual size of the objects, but from our own littleness.