If in you, may there be none of gods or men who will punish your offences; do you only repent of them.

It is not your cowardice they have despised, nor their own valour they have confided in; for having been so often routed and put to flight, stripped of their camp, amerced in their land, sent under the yoke, they know both themselves and you.

The discord among the several orders is the bane of this city; the contests of the patricians and commons have raised their spirits; whilst we have neither bounds in the pursuit of power, nor you in that of liberty, whilst you are tired of patrician, these of plebeian magistrates.

In the name of heaven, what would ye have?
You coveted tribunes of the commons; we conceded them for the sake of concord.

Ye longed for decemvirs; we suffered them to be created.