1But the habit of parties and factions, and then of every evil practice, had arisen at Rome a few years before, out of leisure and an abundance of those things which mortals count most important. 2For before the destruction of Carthage the Roman people and senate managed the commonwealth between them peaceably and with restraint, and there was no struggle among the citizens for glory or for mastery: fear of the enemy kept the state to good conduct. 3But when that dread had left their minds, then, naturally, wantonness and arrogance, the things which prosperity loves, came upon them. 4So the leisure which they had longed for in adversity proved, once they had gained it, harsher and more bitter.
5For the nobility began to turn their rank, and the people their liberty, into licence, and each man to take, seize and plunder for himself. 5So everything was torn into two parties, and the commonwealth, which had been in the middle, was rent apart. 6However, the nobility was stronger through faction, while the strength of the commons, loose and scattered among the multitude, had less power. 7Affairs at war and at home were conducted at the pleasure of a few; 7in the hands of the same men were the treasury, the provinces, the magistracies, glories and triumphs; 7the people were oppressed by military service and poverty; 7the generals plundered the spoils of war with a few others: meanwhile the parents or little children of the soldiers, if any of them had a more powerful neighbour, were driven from their homes.
9So, together with power, greed without measure or restraint invaded, defiled and laid waste everything, holding nothing sacred or of any account, until it hurled itself headlong. 10For as soon as men were found among the nobility who would put true glory before unjust power, the state began to be shaken, and civil discord began to arise like an upheaval of the earth.