What?
do these such frequent meetings in Etruria on the subject of sending aid to Veii suffer us to disregard the danger which we encounter by procrastinating the war?
As matters stand now, they are incensed, they dislike them, they refuse to send any; as far as they are concerned, we are at liberty to take Veii.

Who can promise that their temper will be the same hereafter, if the war is suspended?
when, if you suffer any relaxation, more respectable and more frequent embassies will go; when that which now displeases the Etrurians, the establishment of a king at Veii, may, after an interval, be done away with, either by the joint determination of the state that they may recover the good will of the Etrurians, or by a voluntary act of the king, who may be unwilling that his reign should stand in the way of the welfare of his countrymen.

See how many circumstances, and how detrimental, follow that line of conduct: the loss of works formed with so great labour; the threatening devastation of our frontiers; an Etruscan excited instead of a Veientian war.

These, tribunes, are your measures, pretty much the same, in truth, as if a person should render a disease tedious, and perhaps incurable, for the sake of present meat or drink, in a patient who, by resolutely suffering himself to be treated, might soon recover his health.
6.

"If, by Jove, it were of no consequence with respect to the present war, yet it certainly would be of the utmost importance to military discipline, that our soldiers should be accustomed not only to enjoy the victory obtained by them; but even though matters should proceed more slowly than was anticipated, to brook the tediousness and await the issue of their hopes, however tardy; and if the war be not finished in the summer, to wait for the winter, and not, like summer birds, in the very commencement of autumn look out for shelter and a retreat.