Book 9
1.7
What more, Romans, do I owe to you or to the treaty or to the gods who were invoked as witnesses to the treaty? What arbitrator am I to bring forward to decide how far your wrath, how far my punishment is to go?
1.8
I am willing to accept any, whether it he a nation or a private individuaI. But if human law leaves no rights which the weak share with the stronger, I can still fly to the gods, the avengers of intolerable tyranny, and I will pray them to turn their wrath against those for whom it is not enough to have
1.9
their own restored to them and to he loaded also with what belongs to others, whose cruel rage is not satiated by the death of the guilty and the surrender of their lifeless remains together with their property, who cannot he appeased unless we give them our very blood to suck and our bowels to tear.
1.10
A war is just and right, Samnites, when it is forced upon us; arms are blessed by heaven when there is no hope except in arms.
1.11
Since then it is of supreme importance in human affairs what things men do under divine favour and what they do against the divine will, he well assured that, if in your former wars you were fighting against the gods even more than against men, in this war which is impending you will have the gods themselves to lead you.”
2.1
After uttering this prediction, which proved to he as true as it was reassuring, he took the field and, keeping his movements as secret as possible, fixed his camp in the neighbourhood of Caudium.
