[1] Augustine, City of God 2.21: Thus, when the Roman commonwealth was in the condition that Sallust describes, it was no longer terrible and highly criminal, as he says, but altogether no commonwealth at all according to the argument set out in the discussion concerning the commonwealth held by the greatest leaders of the time. Cicero himself, speaking at the outset of the fifth book, not using the voice of Scipio or one of the others but in his own voice, first quoted the verse of the poet Ennius in which he said:

The Roman state stands upon the morals and men of old.

He then said: “That verse, in its brevity and its truthfulness, he seems to me to have spoken as if from an oracle. For if the state had not had such morals, then the men would not have existed; nor, if such men had not been in charge, would there have been such morals as to be able to establish or preserve for so long a commonwealth so great and ruling so widely. And so, before our time, ancestral morality provided outstanding men, and great men preserved the morality of old and the institutions of our ancestors. [2a] But our own time, having inherited the commonwealth like a wonderful picture that had faded over time, not only has failed to renew its original colors but has not even taken the trouble to preserve at least its shape and outlines. […] ”