IX. Now however, if any one borne upon the chariot with winged serpents, of which Pacuvius speaks, could survey with his eyes, and look down upon the many and various nations and cities; he might see chiefly among that unchanging race of the Egyptians, which preserves in its records the memory of so many events and ages, an ox esteemed as a god, which the Egyptians call Apis; and many other strange things among them, among which wild beasts consecrated into the number of the gods. Then in Greece, where as with us, magnificent temples are consecrated containing human images, which the Persians considered impious. For which cause alone, Xerxes is said to have ordered the temples of the Athenians to be burnt; considering it to be wicked to shut the gods up within walls, whose residence was the whole universe. Afterwards Philip who had it in contemplation, and Alexander who carried it into effect, gave as reasons for making war against the Persians, that they avenged the temples of Greece; which the Greeks did not think of repairing, that the devastation might be an eternal monument to posterity of the infamy of the Persians. How many, as the Taurians in Axinum, as Busiris the king of Egypt, as the Gauls, the Carthagenians, have thought it a grateful and pious duty to the gods, to immolate men. But the institutions of life differ so much, that the Cretans and Etolians esteem it honourable to steal: the Lacedemonians used to say that all lands were theirs which they could reach with a shaft. The Athenians were wont to swear even publicly, that every soil was theirs, which produced oil and corn. The Gauls consider it shameful to produce grain by labour, and therefore go armed to harvest other people’s lands. But we, the most just of men, to make our own olive and vineyards more valuable, do not permit the transalpine nations to plant them: in doing which we are said to act prudently; it is not called acting justly. By which you may understand there is a wide distance between prudence and equity. Lycurgus, the founder of the best laws, and the most equal rights, gave the lands of the wealthy to be cultivated by the lower class in the state of servitude.