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.

this is the opportunity which has been given you by your own courage and the goodness of the gods.

You tried their patience by refusing to supply troops. Who doubts that they were intensely irritated when we broke through a custom more than two centuries old? Still they put up with the annoyance.