Ab urbe condita

“I want you, soldiers,” he continued, “to follow my deeds not my words, and to look to me not only for the word at command but also for example. It was not by party struggles nor by the intrigues so common amongst the nobles but by my own right hand that I won three consulships and attained the highest reputation.

There was a time when it might have been said to me, “Yes, for you were a patrician descended from the liberators at our country, and your family held the consulship in the very year when this City first possessed consuls.”