Ab urbe condita

who reckoned up almost more triumphs than years since the foundation of their City, who had subdued by the might at their arms all the surrounding nations —Sabines, Etruscans, Latins, Hernici, Aequi, Volscians, and Auruncans —who had slain the Gauls in so many battles and driven them at last to their ships?

His men must not only go into action in full reliance upon their own courage and warlike reputation, but they must also remember under whose auspices and generalship they were going to fight, whether under a man who is only

to be listened to provided he is a big talker, courageous only in words, ignorant of a soldier's work, or under one who himself knows how to handle weapons, who can show himself in the front, and do his duty in the melee at battle.

“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.”

Now, however, the consulship is open to you, plebeians, as much as to us who are patricians; it is not the reward of high birth as it once was, but of personal merit. Look forward then, soldiers, to securing all the highest honours!

If with the sanction of the gods you men have given me this new name at Corvinus, I have not forgotten the old cognomen of our family; I have not forgotten that I am a Publicola.[*](See p. 78, Vol. I.)

I always study and always have studied the interests of the Roman plebs, both at home and in the field, whether as a private citizen or holding public office, whether as military tribune or as consul. I have been consistent to this aim in all my successive consulships.

And now for what is immediately before us: go on with the help at heaven, and win with me for the first time a triumph over your new foes —the Samnites.”

Nowhere was there ever a general who endeared himself more to his soldiers by cheerfully sharing every duty with the humblest