Tribunes, is this bringing aid to the commons, to expose them in a defenceless state to be butchered by the enemy.

Now, if any one, even the humblest individual of your commons, (which portion you have as it were broken off from the rest of the state, and made it your country and peculiar commonwealth,) if any one of these persons were to bring word that his house was beset by an armed band of slaves, you would think that assistance should be afforded to him.

Was Jupiter, the best and greatest, when surrounded by the arms of exiles and of slaves, deserving of no human aid?
And do these persons require that they be considered sacred and inviolable,[126] with whom the gods themselves are neither sacred nor inviolable?
But, steeped as ye are in crimes against both gods and men, do ye say that you will pass your law this year?
Verily then the day on which I was created consul was a disastrous day for the commonwealth, much more so even than that on which Publius Valerius the consul fell, if ye should carry it.

Now, first of all," says he, "Romans, it is the intention of myself and of my colleague to march the legions against the Volsci and the AEqui.

I know not by what fatality we find the gods more propitious when we are at war than in peace.