If you defend us, yours; if you desert us, we shall be the property of the Samnites.

Consider, then, whether you would rather that Capua and all Campania should be added to your power or to that of the Samnites.
Romans, it is surely but just, that your compassion and your aid should lie open to all men; to those, however, chiefly, who, whilst they afford it beyond their means to others imploring aid, have themselves been involved in this distress.

Although we fought nominally for the Sidicinians, in reality for ourselves, when we saw a neighbouring state assailed by the nefarious plunder of the Samnites; and after the Sidicinians had been consumed, we saw that the conflagration would pass over to ourselves.

For the Samnites do not come to attack us, because they resent an injury received, but because they are glad that a pretext has been presented to them.

If this were the gratification of their resentment, and not an occasion for satiating their ambition, was it not sufficient that they cut down our legions once in the Sidicinian territory, a second time in Campania itself?
What sort of resentment must that be, which the blood shed in two pitched battles cannot satiate?
To this add the laying waste of our lands; the spoil of men and cattle driven away, the burning and ruin of our country-houses, every thing destroyed by fire and sword.