Had their reason been sound, would it have been difficult, during the time which they spent in sending for old men from home to give them advice, to send ambassadors to Rome, and to negotiate a peace and treaty with the senate, and with the people?
It would have been a journey of only three days to expeditious travellers.

In the interim, matters might have rested under a truce, that is, until their ambassadors should have brought from Rome, either certain victory or peace.

That would have been really a compact, on the faith of sureties, for we should have become sureties by order of the people.

But, neither would ye have passed such an order, nor should we have pledged our faith; nor was it right that the affair should have any other issue, than, that they should be vainly mocked with a dream, as it were, of greater prosperity than their minds were capable of comprehending, and that the same fortune, which had entangled our army, should extricate it; that an ineffectual victory should be frustrated by a more ineffectual peace; and that a convention, on the faith of a surety, should be introduced, which bound no other person beside the surety.

For what part had ye, conscript fathers; what part had the people, in this affair?
Who can call upon you?
Who can say, that he has been deceived by you?
Can the enemy?
Can a citizen?
To the enemy ye engaged nothing.