"(...)
These men dressed in black, who eat like elephants, who tire out,
because of the abundance of the cups they guzzle, those who serve them to
drink: they, who hide these excesses under a pallor which they procure
artificially (... ), run against all the holy places screaming and
carrying wood, stone and iron. And the ones who have no tools, make use of the
hands and feet. Then the roofs are pulled down, the walls crashed,
pulled down the statues, altars overturned , the priests must be silent or die. Destroyed a building, they run to a second and then to a third and
the trophies are added to the trophies against all laws.
All these violence are made in the cities but especially in the villages. These men in large numbers attack everywhere. After
causing much damage separately, they meet each other and tell their feats to each other: they consider a shame not to have committed the most
outrageous injustice. They go to the assault of the villages as streams ravaging the fields, the houses of innocent: blinding, tearing down and killing.
(...)
They say they are fighting in the name of their god, in the name of their faith, but this war is
only a way to take enormous richness, to steal the money of the
distressed. They live thanks to the evil caused to others.
These are men who do not hesitate at nothing. The destruction they make is the result of their greed, their violence and fury.
Here's an example. In
the city of Berea there was a bronze of Asclepius, a statue in which art
imitated maximally nature. It was so beautiful that anyone who saw her once
wanted to go back to see her again. This
statue, this work of art, this masterpiece, created with great
effort, the work of an illustrious genius, by Phidias, was torn apart
and destroyed. Many hands have divided the work of Phidias. Why? "
Libanius "In Defense of the Temples"
2 commenti:
As you suggest, this is what becoming acquainted with history is all about - realising that the more things change the more things stay the same ... the trick is to learn the lessons of history and try to do things in a better way instead of just repeating the same mistakes again and again. These men have given into a grotesque form of superstitio - they think their God asks them to do vile things as a means of demonstrating piety (but no true God could ask such things of people) - but as Cicero has said, those who give in to superstitio can have no peace of mind.
This is a serious problem. We have still to cope, in this XXI century, with groups of individuals killing and destroying in the name of god as in the times of Libanius. In that age this kind specific kind of violence was unknown but we know very well the result of those violences. This is not only a problem of superstitio. Probably, here in Europe, living very close to the palces where these violences are taking place, we are living these events with a more vivid impression. The question is that we have already passed through a Middle Age and it was a not particularly positive experience. In particular here in Italy, even if the Italians are very inclined to the oblivion, we have already lived "the end of the world" in the past: we needed centuries of cultural fights to overcome the age of the witch-hunts.
And I don't want to live those experiences again.
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