But I shall estimate the slaughters in this island but at two millions; which your lordship will find much short of the reality.
Let us pass by the wars, and the consequences of them, which wasted Grecia-Magna, before the Roman power prevailed in that part of Italy.
They are perhaps exaggerated; therefore I shall only rate them at one million.

Let us hasten to open that great scene which establishes the Roman empire, and forms the grand catastrophe of the ancient drama.

This empire, whilst in its infancy, began by an effusion of human blood scarcely credible.

The neighboring little states teemed for new destruction: the Sabines, the Samnites, the AEqui, the Volsci, the Hetrurians, were broken by a series of slaughters which had no interruption, for some hundreds of years; slaughters which upon all sides consumed more than two millions of the wretched people.

The Gauls, rushing into Italy about this time, added the total destruction of their own armies to those of the ancient inhabitants.