I pray, though we are not admitted to the annals, nor to the commentaries of the pontiffs, do we not know even those things which strangers know?
that consuls have succeeded kings?
and that they possess no privilege, no majesty which was not formerly inherent in kings?
Do you suppose that we ever heard it mentioned that Numa Pompilius, who not only was not a patrician, but not even a citizen of Rome, was sent for from the country of the Sabines by order of the people, with the approbation of the senate, and that he was made king at Rome?
that afterwards Lucius Tarquinius, who was not only not of Roman, but not even of Italian extraction, the son of Damaratus of Corinth, an emigrant from Tarquinii, was made king, even whilst the sons of Ancus still lived?
that after him Servius Tullius, the son of a captive woman of Corniculum, with his father unknown, his mother a slave, attained the throne by his ability and merit?
For what shall I say of Titus Tatius the Sabine, whom Romulus himself, the founder of our city, admitted into partnership of the throne?
Accordingly, whilst no class of persons is disdained, in whom conspicuous merit may be found, the Roman dominion increased.

You do well to be dissatisfied now with a plebeian consul, when your ancestors disdained not foreigners as kings, and when, even after the expulsion of kings, the city was not shut against foreign merit.

After the expulsion of the kings, we certainly admitted the Claudian family from the Sabine country not only into citizenship, but even into the number of the patricians.

Can a man from a foreigner be made a patrician, then a consul?
shall a Roman citizen, if he belong to the commons, be precluded from all hope of the consulate?
Do we then deem it impossible that a man of the commons can be a person of fortitude and activity, qualified to excel both in peace and war, tyke to Numa, Lucius Tarquinius, and Servius Tullius?
Or, should such appear, shall we not suffer him to meddle with the helm of government?
or shall we have consuls like the decemvirs, the most abandoned of mortals, who were, however, all patricians, rather than like the best of kings, though new men?
4.

"But (I may be told) no commoner has been consul since the expulsion of the kings.