Ab urbe condita

Titus Livius (Livy)

Livy. History of Rome, Volumes 1-2. Roberts, Canon, Rev, translator. London, New York: J. M. Dent and Sons; E. P. Dutton and Co., 1912.

With what a vast crowd made up of every class, think you, did we start from the gates? How full of tears and prayers did we leave all behind. In what a state of expectancy are the senate and people of Capua, our wives and children, now living!

I am quite certain that the whole population is standing at the gates, watching the road which leads from here, in anxious suspense as to what reply you are ordering us to carry back to them.