31.7
The
Assembly was duly convened in the Campus Martius, and before the
question was put to the vote, the consul addressed the centuries in the
following terms: "You seem to be unaware, Quirites, that what you have to
decide is not whether you will have peace or war; Philip will not leave you
any option as to that, he is preparing war on an enormous scale both by land
and sea. The only question is whether you will transport the legions into
Macedonia or wait for the enemy in Italy. You have learnt by experience, if
not before, at all events in the late Punic War, what a difference it makes
which you decide upon. When Saguntum was beseiged and our allies were
imploring us for help, who doubts that if we had sent prompt assistance, as
our fathers did to the Mamertines, we should have confined within the
borders of Spain that war which, most disastrously for ourselves, we allowed
through procrastination to enter Italy. Why, this very Philip had entered into
an agreement with Hannibal through his agents and in his despatches that he
would invade Italy, and there is not the smallest doubt that we kept him in
Macedonia by sending Laevinus with a fleet to take the offensive against
him. Are we hesitating to do now what we did then, when we had Hannibal
for our enemy in Italy -now that Hannibal has been driven out of Italy and
out of Carthage, and Carthage itself is completely vanquished? If we allow
the king to make proof of our slackness by storming Athens as we allowed
Hannibal to do by storming Saguntum, it will not be in five months -the time
Hannibal took from Saguntum -but in five days after he sails from Corinth
that he will set foot in Italy.
"Perhaps you do not put Philip on a par with Hannibal or consider
the Macedonians equal to the Carthaginians. At all events you will consider
him the equal of Pyrrhus. Equal, do I say? How greatly the one man
surpasses the other, how superior is the one nation to the other! Epirus
always has been and is today a very small accession to the kingdom of
Macedonia. The whole of the Peloponnese is under the sway of Philip, not
excepting even Argos, famous for the death of Pyrrhus, quite as much as for
its ancient glory. Now compare our position. Consider the flourishing state
of Italy when all those generals and armies were safe and sound which have
been since swept away by the Punic War. And yet when Pyrrhus attacked it,
he shook it to its foundations and all but reached Rome itself in his
victorious career! Not only did the Tarentines revolt from us and the whole
of that coastal district of Italy called Magna Graecia, which you would
naturally suppose would follow a leader of the same language and nationality
as themselves, but the Lucanians, the Bruttians and the Samnites did the
same. Do you suppose that if Philip landed in Italy, these nations would
remain quiet and true to us? They showed their loyalty, I suppose, in the
Punic War. No, those nations will never fall to revolt from us, unless there is
no longer any one to whom they can revolt. If you had thought it too much
to go to Africa you would have had Hannibal and his Carthaginians in Italy
today. Let Macedonia rather than Italy be the seat of war, let it be the
enemy's cities and fields that are devastated with fire and sword. We have
learnt by this time that our arms are more potent and more successful abroad
than they are at home. Go to the poll with the help of the gods, and confirm
the decision of the senate. It is not your consul only who urges you to take
this course, the immortal gods also bid you do it, for when I was offering up
the sacrifices and praying that this war might end happily for the senate, for
myself, for you, for our allies and Latin confederates, for our fleets and
armies, the gods vouchsafed every cheering and happy omen."
