History has scarcely deigned to notice [Libius Severus's] birth, his elevation, his character, or his death.

Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative.

That country [Carthage] was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from whence it had been raised by the Phoenician colonies and Roman laws; and every step of intestine discord was marked by some deplorable victory of savage man over civilized society.

I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.

A philosopher may deplore the eternal discords of the human race, but he will confess, that the desire of spoil is a more rational provocation than the vanity of conquest.

[It] is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the authority of the laws.

My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.