We, by the bounty of the gods, your good fortune, and that of the Roman people, have both our cause and our glory uninjured.

Though of glory I would scarcely venture to say any thing; since both the enemy scoff at us with every kind of insult, as women hiding ourselves behind a rampart; and you, our general, what we grieve at still more, judge your army to be without spirit, without arms, without hands; and before you had made trial of us, you have so despaired of us, as to consider yourself to be the leader of a set of maimed and disabled men.

For what else shall we believe to be the reason why you, a veteran general, most valiant in war, sit down with hands folded, as they say.

But however it may be, it is fitter that you should seem to doubt of our courage than we of yours.

If however this plan of proceeding be not your own, but a public one, if some concerted scheme of the patricians, and not the Gallic war, keeps us exiled from the city, from our homes, I beg that you consider what I may say here, as addressed not by soldiers to their general, but to the patricians by the commons, who tell you that as ye have your separate plans, so will they have theirs.