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" But if your concern to preserve your liberty were as great as their ardor to increase their power of oppression, the state would not be distracted as it is at present; and the marks of favor which proceed from you,The marks of favor which proceed from you] Beneficia vestra. Offices of state, civil and military. would be conferred, not on the most shameless, but on the most deserving. Your forefathers, in order to assert their rights and establish their authority, twice seceded in arms to Mount Aventine ; and will not you exert yourselves, to the utmost of your power, in defense of that liberty which you received from them ? Will you not display so much the more spirit in the cause, from the reflection that it is a greater disgrace to loseA greater disgrace to lose, etc.] Quòd majus dedecus est parta amitere qnam omnino non paravisse. Thucyd. ii. 62. what has been gained, than not to have gained it at all ?