Page:A Vindication of Natural Society - Burke (1756).djvu/31

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mentary Shadow, and Dream of Power in some one; and the Subjection of all to the Yoke of a Stranger, who knows how to profit of their Divisions. This at least was the Case of the Greeks; and sure, from the earliest Accounts of them, to their Absorption into the Roman Empire, we cannot judge that their intestine Divisions, to say nothing of their foreign Wars, consumed less than three Millions of their Inhabitants.

What an Aceldama, what a Field of Blood Sicily has been in antient times, whilst the Mode of it's Government was controverted between the Republican and Tyrannical Parties, and the Possession struggled for by the Natives, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and the Romans, your Lordship will easily recollect. You will remember the total Destruction of such Bodies as an Army of 300,000 Men. You will find every Page of it's History dyed in Blood, and blotted and confoundedby