“Do you not recall, partly from hearsay and partly from observation, that none of the Italian races refrained from plotting against our country until our ancestors brought war into their territories, nor did the Epirots until they crossed over into Greece?  Philip did not refrain, but intended to make a campaign against Italy until they wrought harm to his land in advance.  Nor was there hesitation on the part of Perseus, of Antiochus, of Mithridates, until they were subjected to the same treatment.  And why must one mention the remaining cases?  For a while the Carthaginians suffered no damage at our hands in Africa, and crossed into Italy, where they overran the country, sacked the towns and almost captured the City itself; but when war began to be made against them they decamped altogether from our land.  One might instance this same course of events in regard to the Gauls and Celts.  For these people while we remained on this side of the Alps often crossed them and ravaged a large part of Italy.  But when we ventured at last to make a campaign beyond the mountains and to surround them with war, and actually detached a portion of their territory, we never again saw any war begun by them in Italy except once.  When, accordingly, in the face of these facts anybody says that we ought not to make war he simply says that we ought not to be rich, ought not to rule others, ought not to be free, to be Romans.  Just as you would not endure it if a man should say any of these things, but would kill him even as he stood before you, so now also, my comrades, assume a like attitude toward those who utter the other form of statement, judging their disposition not by their words but by their acts.

[-41-] “Now no one of you would contend, I think, that these are not the right kind of ideas to entertain.  If, however, any one thinks that the fact of no investigation having been made about this war before the senate and of no vote having been passed in presence of the assembly is a reason why we need be less eager, let him reflect that of all the wars which have ever fallen to our lot some, to be sure, have come about as a result of preparation and previous announcement, but others equally on the spur of the moment.  For this reason all uprisings that are made while we are staying at home and keeping quiet and in which the beginning of the complaints arises from some embassy both need and demand an enquiry into their nature and the introduction of a vote, after which the consuls and praetors must be assigned to them and the forces sent out:  but all that come to light after persons have already gone forth and taken the field are no longer to be brought up for decision, but to be taken hold of in advance, before they increase, as matters decreed and ratified by Necessity herself.