Ab urbe condita

We waged war with the Paelignians on our own account; they who before did not allow us the right to defend our own frontiers did not intervene. They heard that the Sidicines were received into our protection, that the Campanians had revolted from them to us, that we were preparing an army to act against the Samnites with whom they had a treaty, they never moved out of their City.

What was this extraordinary self-restraint due to but to a consciousness of our strength and of theirs? I have it on good authority that when the Samnites were laying their complaints about us they received a reply from the Roman senate, from which it was quite evident that they themselves do not now claim that Latium is under the authority of Rome.