The City of God

A If, therefore, Virgil calls such gods conquered, and if they were commended to a man so that they might escape in any way even after being conquered, what madness is it to think that Rome was wisely entrusted to these guardians, and that it could not have been devastated unless it had lost them? Rather, what is it to worship conquered gods as if they were lords and defenders, other than to hold not good spirits, but Otherwise names evil demons? For how much more wisely is it believed, not that Rome would not have come to that disaster if they had not perished first, but that they would have perished long ago if Rome had not saved them as much as it could. For who, when he considers it, does not see how great the vanity is in presuming that a city could not be conquered under defeated defenders, and that it perished because it lost its guardian gods, when the sole cause of perishing could have been the desire to have as guardians those who were themselves about to perish? Therefore, when those things were written and sung about defeated gods, it did not force the poets to lie, but truth forced wise men to confess. But these matters are to be treated more diligently and copiously in another place. Now I shall briefly set forth, as I am able, what I had instituted: to speak about ungrateful men, who impute to Christ those evils which they suffer, deservedly, on account of the perversity of their own morals, while blaspheming Him. They do not deign to attend to the fact that they are spared even in such a state on account of Christ, nor do they exercise those tongues against His name with the madness of sacrilegious wantonness, with which tongues they mendaciously usurped the very name so that they might live. Or those tongues which they restrained in places sacred to Him out of fear, so that they might be safe and protected there, where they were unharmed by the enemy on account of Him, from there they would leap forth with hostile curses against Him.

Regarding the asylum of Juno in Troy, which liberated no one from the Greeks, and the basilicas of the apostles, which defended all who fled to them from the barbarians. Chap. IV

Of the asylum of Juno As I said, Troy itself, the mother of the Roman people, could not protect its citizens with the sacred places of its gods from the fires and iron of the Greeks, who worshipped those same gods; nay, rather B

The chosen guards, Phoenix and the dire Ulysses,
Were keeping watch over the plunder. Hither from all sides, the wealth of Troy
Snatched from the burned shrines, and the tables of the gods,
And craters of solid gold, and captive vestments
Are heaped up. Boys and terrified mothers in long lines
Stand around.

The place, indeed, chosen and sacred to so great a goddess was used not to refrain from taking captives out, but where it allowed captives to be taken in. Compare now that asylum—not of just any casual god, or one of the common crowd, but of the sister and wife of Jupiter himself, and the queen of all the gods—with the memorials of our apostles. There, spoils snatched from burned temples and gods were brought, not to be returned to the vanquished, but to be divided among the victors; here, however, and whatever else was found to pertain to those places, was brought back with honor and the most religious respect. There, liberty was lost; here, it was preserved. There, captivity was closed; here, it was forbidden. There, they were pressed by the dominating enemy to be possessed; hither, they were led by the compassionate to be liberated. Finally, that temple of Juno was chosen by the avarice and pride of the fickle Greeks; these basilicas of Christ were chosen by the mercy and humility of even the savage barbarians. Unless perhaps some Greeks, in that victory of theirs, spared the temples of the common gods, and did not dare to strike or take captive the wretched and vanquished Trojans who fled there. But Virgil, in the manner of poets, lied about those things. Indeed, he described the custom of enemies overturning cities.

Regarding the general custom of enemies overturning vanquished cities, and what Cato thought. Chap. V

Which custom even Cato, as Sallust, a historian of ennobled truth, writes, does not fail to commemorate in his opinion which he held in the senate about the conspirators: that virgins are raped, children torn from the embrace of their parents, matrons of families suffer whatever the victors pleased, shrines and homes are plundered, slaughter and arson occur. Finally, that all things are filled with arms, corpses, blood, and grief. Here, if he had been silent about the shrines, we might think that the seats of the gods