[…] adversity bends the heart as fire bends the stubborn steel, and those who are no longer their own governors, and the denizens of their own free independent state, must crouch before strangers.

clad very plain, but clean and tight

In particular the power sharing and consensus mechanisms enshrined in the process have been designed to ensure that the politicians engage in a continuous balancing process . . .

There is no surviving contemporary account of the war between the Palmyrenes and the Emperor Aurelian.