His rods are ready for their backs, his axes for their necks, and every year they are allotted a different master.

Neither ought they nor can they, wonder at this, when they see all the cities of Italy bending under the same yoke,--Rhegium, Tarentum Capua, not to mention those in their own neighbourhood, out of the ruins of which their city of Rome grew into power.

Capua indeed subsists, the grave and monument of the Campanian people, that entire people having been either cut off or driven into banishment; the mutilated carcass of a city, without senate, without commons, without magistrates; a sort of prodigy, the leaving which to be inhabited, showed more cruelty than if it had been utterly destroyed.

If foreigners who are separated from us to a greater distance by their language, manners, and laws, than by the distance by sea and land, are allowed to get footing here, it is madness to hope that any thing will continue in its present state.
Does the sovereignty of Philip seem in any degree incompatible with your freedom, who, at a time when he was justly incensed against you, demanded nothing more of you than peace; and at present requires no more than the observance of the peace which he agreed to?
Accustom foreign legions to these countries, and receive the yoke; too late, and in vain, will you look for Philip as an ally, when you shall have the Roman as a master.

Trifling causes occasionally unite and disunite the Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Macedonians, men speaking the same language.