Laudator Temporis Acti

Dio Cassius 56.7.5 (speech of Augustus; tr. Earnest Cary):

How otherwise can families continue? How can the State be preserved, if we neither marry nor have children? For surely you are not expecting men to spring up from the ground to succeed to your goods and to the public interests, as the myths describe! And yet it is neither right nor creditable that our race should cease, and the name of Romans be blotted out with us, and the city be given over to foreigners—Greeks or even barbarians.

πῶς μὲν γὰρ ἂν ἄλλως τὰ γένη διαμείνειε, πῶς δ᾿ ἂν τὸ κοινὸν διασωθείη μήτε γαμούντων ἡμῶν μήτε παιδοποιουμένων; οὐ γάρ που καὶ ἐκ τῆς γῆς προσδοκᾶτέ τινας ἀναφύσεσθαι τοὺς διαδεξομένους τά τε ὑμέτερα καὶ τὰ δημόσια, ὥσπερ οἱ μῦθοι λέγουσιν. οὐ μὴν οὐδ᾿ ὅσιον ἢ καὶ καλῶς ἔχον ἐστὶ τὸ μὲν ἡμέτερον γένος παύσασθαι καὶ τὸ ὄνομα τὸ Ῥωμαίων ἐν ἡμῖν ἀποσβῆναι, ἄλλοις δέ τισιν ἀνθρώποις Ἕλλησιν ἢ καὶ βαρβάροις τὴν πόλιν ἐκδοθῆναι.