Book 28
28
"Though no crime is dictated by rational motives, I should still like to know what was in your mind, what was your intention, so far as such wickedness admitted of any. Years ago a legion which was sent to garrison Regium murdered the principal men of the place and kept possession of that wealthy city for ten years. For this crime the entire legion of 4000 men were beheaded at Rome in the Forum. But they did not choose for their leader an Umbrian who was little more than a camp-follower, an Atrius whose very name is an evil omen. They followed D. Vibellius, a military tribune. Nor did they join hands with Pyrrhus, or with the Samnites and Lucanians, the enemies of Rome, but you communicated your plans to Mandonius and Indibilis and prepared to join them in arms. They were content to do as the Campanians did when they wrested Capua from the Tuscans, its old inhabitants, or as the Mamertines did when they seized Messana in Sicily; they intended to make Regium their future home without any idea of attacking Rome or the allies of Rome. Did you intend to make Sucro your permanent abode? If, after subjugating Spain, I had gone away and left you here you would have rightly complained to gods and men that you had not returned to your wives and children. But you may have banished from your minds all thought of them, as you have in the case of your country and in my own case. I want to trace the course which your criminal project would have taken, though stopping short of the extreme of madness. As long as I was alive and retained intact the army with which in one day I captured New Carthage and defeated and routed four Carthaginian armies, would you really have wrested the province of Spain from the hands of Rome, you, a force of some 8000 men, every one of you of less account at all events than the Albius and Atrius whom you made your masters?
