being then elected consuls, found neither disturbance at home nor war abroad; both, however, were impending.  The discord of the citizens could now no longer be checked, both tribunes and commons being exasperated against the patricians, while, if a day of trial was appointed for any of the nobility, it always embroiled the assemblies in new struggles.  On the first report of these the AEquans and Volscians, as if they had received a signal, took up arms; also because their leaders, eager for plunder, had persuaded them that the levy proclaimed two years previously could not be proceeded with, as the commons now refused obedience to military authority:  that for that reason no armies had been sent against them; that military discipline was subverted by licentiousness, and that Rome was no longer considered a common country for its citizens; that whatever resentment and animosity they might have entertained against foreigners, was now directed against themselves; that now an opportunity offered itself for destroying wolves blinded by intestine rage.  Having united their forces, they first utterly laid waste the Latin territory:  when none met them to avenge the wrong, then indeed, to the great exultation of the advisers of the war, they approached the very walls of Rome, carrying their depredations into the district around the Esquiline gate[69] pointing out to the city in mocking insult the devastation of the land.  When they marched back thence to Corbio unmolested and driving their booty before them, Quinctius the consul summoned the people to an assembly.

There I find that he spoke to this effect:  “Though I am conscious to myself of no fault, Quirites, yet it is with the greatest shame I have come forward to your assembly.  To think that you should know this, that this should be handed down on record to posterity, that the AEquans and Volscians a short time since scarcely a match for the Hernicans, have with impunity come with arms in their hands to the walls of Rome, in the fourth consulate of Titus Quinctius!  Had I known that this disgrace was reserved for this year, above all others, though we have now long been living in such a manner, and such is the state of affairs, that my mind can forebode nothing good, I would have avoided this honour either by exile or by death, if there had been no other means of escaping it.  Then, if men of courage had held those arms, which were at our gates, Rome could have been taken during my consulate.  I have had sufficient honours, enough and more than enough of life:  I ought to have died in my third consulate.  Whom, I pray, did these most dastardly enemies despise?  Us, consuls, or you, Quirites?  If the fault lies in us, take away the command from those who are unworthy of it; and, if that is not enough, further inflict punishment on us.  If the fault is yours, may there be none of gods or men to punish your offences:  do you yourselves only repent of them.  It is not your cowardice they have despised, nor their own valour