be well assured that you shall never assail Rome without first passing over the corpse of your mother.  I cannot wait for that day on which I shall either see my countrymen triumphing over my son, or my son triumphing over his country.  If indeed I were to ask you to betray the Volscians and save your country, this would be a hard request for you to grant; for though it is base to destroy one’s own fellow citizens, it is equally wrong to betray those who have trusted you.  But we merely ask for a respite from our sufferings, which will save both nations alike from ruin, and which will be all the more glorious for the Volscians because their superiority in the field has put them in a position to grant us the greatest of blessings, peace and concord, in which they also will share alike with us.  You will be chiefly to be thanked for these blessings, if we obtain them, and chiefly to be blamed if we do not.  For though the issue of war is always doubtful, this much is evident, that if you succeed, you will become your country’s evil genius, and if you fail, you will have inflicted the greatest miseries on men who are your friends and benefactors, merely in order to gratify your own private spite.”

XXXVI.  While Volumnia spoke thus, Marcius listened to her in silence.  After she had ceased, he stood for a long while without speaking, until she again addressed him.  “Why art thou silent, my son?  Is it honourable to make everything give way to your rancorous hatred, and is it a disgrace to yield to your mother, when she pleads for such important matters?  Does it become a great man to remember that he has been ill treated, and does it not rather become him to recollect the debt which children owe to their parents.  And yet no one ought to be more grateful than you yourself, who punish ingratitude so bitterly:  in spite of which, though you have already taken a deep revenge on your country for its ill treatment of you, you have not made your mother any return for her kindness.  It would have been right for me to gain my point without any pressure, when pleading in such a just and honourable cause; but if I cannot prevail by words, this resource alone is left me.”  Saying this, she fell at his feet, together with his wife and children.  Marcius, crying out, “What have you done to me, mother?” raised her from the ground, and pressing her hand violently, exclaimed, “You have conquered; your victory is a blessed one for Rome, but ruinous to me, for I shall retreat conquered by you alone.”  After speaking thus, and conferring for a short time in private with his mother and his wife, he at their own request sent them back to Rome, and the following night led away the Volscian army.  Various opinions were current among the Volscians about what had taken place.  Some blamed him severely, while others approved, because they wished for peace.  Others again, though they disliked what he had done, yet did not regard him as a traitor, but as a soft-hearted man who had yielded to overwhelming pressure.  However, no one disobeyed him, but all followed him in his retreat, though more out of regard for his noble character than for his authority.