Book 9
4.8
At last L. Lentulus, of all the staff-officers the most distinguished, both by his personal qualities and the offices he had held, spoke: “I have often,” he said, “heard my father, consuls, say that he was the only one in the Capitol who refused to ransom the City from the Gauls with gold, for the force in the Capitol was not invested and shut in with fosse and rampart, as the Gauls were to indolent to undertake that sort of work; it was therefore quite possible for them to make a sortie involving, perhaps, heavy loss, but not certain destruction.
4.9
If we had the same chance of fighting, whether on favourable or unfavourable ground, which they had of charging down upon the foe from the capitol, in the same way as the besieged have often made sorties against their besiegers, I should not fall behind my father's spirit and courage in the advice which I should give.
4.10
To die for one's country is, I admit, a glorious thing, and as concerns myself I am ready to devote myself for the people and legions of Rome or to plunge into the midst of the enemy.
4.11
But it is here that I beheld my country, it is on this spot that all the legions which Rome possesses are gathered, and unless they wish to rush to death for their own sakes, to save their honour, what else have they that they can save by their death.
