54. But you do not believe these things; yet those who witnessed their occurrence, and who saw them done before their eyes—the very best vouchers and the most trustworthy authorities—both believed them themselves, and transmitted them to us who follow them, to be believed with no scanty measure of confidence. Who are these? you perhaps ask. Tribes, peoples, nations, and that incredulous human race; but113    Or, “which if…itself, would never,” etc. [Note the confidence of this appeal to general assent.] if the matter were not plain, and, as the saying is, clearer than day itself, they would never grant their assent with so ready belief to events of such a kind. But shall we say that the men of that time were untrustworthy, false, stupid, and brutish to such a degree that they pretended to have seen what they never had seen, and that they put forth under false evidence, or alleged with childish asseveration things which never took place, and that when they were able to live in harmony and to maintain friendly relations with you, they wantonly incurred hatred, and were held in execration?

0792B LIV. Sed non creditis gesta haec. Sed qui ea conspicati sunt fieri, et sub oculis suis viderunt agi, testes optimi, certissimique autores, et crediderunt haec ipsi, et credenda posteris nobis haud exilibus cum approbationibus tradiderunt. Quinam isti sunt, fortasse quaeritis? Gentes, populi, nationes, et incredulum illud genus humanum: quod, nisi aperta res esset, et luce ipsa, quemadmodum dicitur, clarior, numquam rebus hujusmodi credulitatis suae 0793A commodaret assensum. At numquid dicemus illius temporis homines usque adeo fuisse vanos, mendaces, stolidos, brutos, ut, quae numquam viderant, vidisse se fingerent? et quae facta omnino non erant, falsis proderent testimoniis, aut puerili assertione firmarent? cumque possent vobiscum et unanimiter vivere, et inoffensas ducere conjunctiones, gratuita susciperent odia, et execrabili haberentur in nomine?