5.51
"So painful to me,
Quirites, are controversies with the tribunes of the
plebs, that all the time I lived at Ardea my one
consolation in my bitter exile was that I was far
removed from these conflicts. As far as they are
concerned I would never have returned even if you
recalled me by a thousand senatorial decrees and
popular votes. And now that I am returned, it was
not change of mind on my part but change of fortune
on yours that compelled me. The question at stake
was whether my country was to remain unshaken in her
seat, not whether I was to be in my country at any
cost. Even now I would gladly remain quiet and hold
my peace, if I were not fighting another battle for
my country. To be wanting to her, as long as life
shall last, would be for other men a disgrace, for
Camillus a downright sin. Why did we win her back,
why did we, when she was beset by foes, deliver her
from their hands, if, now that she is recovered, we
desert her? Whilst the Gauls were victorious and the
whole of the City in their power, the gods and men
of Rome still held, still dwelt in, the Capitol and
the Citadel. And now that the Romans are victorious
and the City recovered, are the Citadel and Capitol
to be abandoned? Shall our good fortune inflict
greater desolation on this City than our evil
fortune wrought? Even had there been no religious
institutions established when the City was founded
and passed down from hand to hand, still, so clearly
has Providence been working in the affairs of Rome
at this time, that I for one would suppose that all
neglect of divine worship has been banished from
human life. Look at the alternations of prosperity
and adversity during these late years; you will find
that all went well with us when we followed the
divine guidance, and all was disastrous when we
neglected it. Take first of all the war with Veii.
For what a number of years and with what immense
exertions it was carried on! It did not come to an
end before the water was drawn off from the Alban
Lake at the bidding of the gods. What, again, of
this unparalleled disaster to our City? Did it burst
upon us before the Voice sent from heaven announcing
the approach of the Gauls was treated with contempt,
before the law of nations had been outraged by our
ambassadors, before we had, in the same irreligious
spirit, condoned that outrage when we ought to have
punished it? And so it was that, defeated, captured,
ransomed, we received such punishment at the hands
of gods and men that we were a lesson to the whole
world. Then, in our adversity, we bethought us of
our religious duties. We fled to the gods in the
Capitol, to the seat of Jupiter Optimus Maximus;
amidst the ruin of all that we possessed we
concealed some of the sacred treasures in the earth,
the rest we carried out of the enemies' sight to
neighbouring cities; abandoned as we were by gods
and men, we still did not intermit the divine
worship. It is because we acted thus that they have
restored to us our native City, and victory and the
renown in war which we had lost; but against the
enemy, who, blinded by avarice, broke treaty and
troth in the weighing of the gold, they have
launched terror and rout and death.