====
Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Greek and Roman writers on war and peace
====
Pliny the Elder
From Natural History
Translated by H. Rackham
But the wonder of everyone is vanquished by the last star, the one most familiar to the earth, and devised by nature to serve as a remedy for the shadows of darkness – the moon…The first human to observe all these facts about her was Endymion – which accounts for the traditional story of his love for her. We forsooth feel no gratitude towards those whose assiduous toil has given us illumination on the subject of this luminary, while owing to a curious disease of the human mind we are pleased to enshrine in history records of bloodshed and slaughter, so that persons ignorant of the fact may be acquainted with the crimes of mankind.
Source