And therefore Ulpian says, that the public have a property in sacred things. Conformably to which Tacitus says, that "in the Italian towns all the temples, the images of the Gods, and every thing connected with religion belonged of right to the Roman people." For this reason a nation, as the Lawyers, Paulus and Venuleius openly maintain, may, under a change of circumstances, convert to secular uses things, that have before been consecrated: and an overruling necessity may justify the hand, which has formerly consecrated the object in employing it as one of the resources and instruments of war. A thing which Pericles once did under a pledge of making restitution: Mago did the same in Spain, and the Romans in the Mithridatic war. We read of the same actions done by Sylla, Pompey, Caesar, and others. Plutarch in his life of Tiberius Gracchus says that nothing is so sacred and inviolable, as divine offerings: yet no one can hinder these from being removed or applied to other purposes at the pleasure of the state. Thus Livy mentions the ornaments of the temples, which Marcellus brought from Syracuse to Rome, as acquisitions made by the right of war. III. What has been said of sacred things and edifices applies also to another kind of solemn fabrics, and those are sepulchral structures, which may be considered not merely as repositories of the dead, but as monuments belonging to the living, whether families or states. For this reason Pomponius has said, that these, like all other sacred places, when taken by an enemy may lose their inviolability, and Paulus is of the same opinion, observing that we are not restrained by any religious scruple from using the sepulchres of an enemy: for the stones, taken from thence, may be applied to any other purpose. But this right does not authorise wanton insult, offered to the ashes of the dead. For that would be a violation of the solemn rights of burial, which, as it was shewn in a preceding part of this work, were introduced and established by the law of nations. IV. Here it may be briefly observed, that, according to the law of nations any thing, belonging to an enemy, may be taken not only by open force, but by stratagem, provided it be unaccompanied with treachery. CHAPTER VI. ON THE ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY AND PROPERTY BY RIGHT OF CONQUEST.