Laudator Temporis Acti

Plautus, Persa 553-560 (tr. Wolfgang de Melo):

SAGARISTIO
What about what you’ve seen? How did the city appear to be fortified with its wall?
GIRL
If its inhabitants have a good character, I consider it beautifully fortified. If perfidy and embezzlement and greed have gone into exile from this city, fourth envy, fifth corruption, sixth vilification, seventh perjury—
TOXILUS
(still aside) Hear, hear!
GIRL
—eighth carelessness, ninth injustice, and tenth wickedness, which is most difficult of all to tackle: a city from which these are absent will be fortified sufficiently with a simple wall; where they are present, a hundredfold wall is too little to preserve its contents.

SAGARISTIO
quid id quod vidisti? ut munitum muro tibi visum oppidum est?
VIRGO
si incolae bene sunt morati, id pulchre moenitum arbitror.
perfidia et peculatus ex urbe et avaritia si exulant,        555
quarta invidia, quinta ambitio, sexta optrectatio,
septumum periurium—
TOXILUS
                                       eugae!
VIRGO
                                                   —octava indiligentia,
nona iniuria, decumum, quod pessumum aggressu est, scelus:
haec unde aberunt, ea urbs moenita muro sat erit simplici;
ubi ea aderunt, centumplex murus rebus servandis parum est.        560

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