above others, for his own army,
advanced to a conference. To him, being immediately recognised, silence
was granted with no less respect by his adversaries, than by his own
party: he says, "Soldiers, at my departure from the city, I prayed to
the immortal gods, your public deities as well as mine, and earnestly
implored their goodness so, that they would grant me the glory of
establishing concord among you, not victory over you. There have been
and there will be sufficient opportunities, whence military fame may be
obtained: on this occasion peace should be the object of our wishes.
What I earnestly called for from the immortal gods when offering up my
prayers, you have it in your power to grant to me, if you will remember,
that you have your camp not in Samnium, nor among the Volscians, but on
Roman ground; that those hills which you behold are those of your
country, that this is the army of your countrymen; that I am your own
consul, under whose guidance and auspices ye last year twice defeated
the legions of the Samnites, twice took their camp by storm. Soldiers, I
am Marcus Valerius Corvus, whose nobility ye have felt by acts of
kindness towards you, not by ill-treatment; the proposer of no
tyrannical law against you, of no harsh decree of the senate; in every
post of command more strict on myself than on you. And if birth, if
personal merit, if high dignity, if public honours could suggest
arrogance to any one, from such ancestors have I been descended, such a
specimen had I given of myself, at such an age did I attain the
consulship, that when but twenty-three years old I might have been a
proud consul, even to the patricians, not to the commons only. What act
or saying of mine, when consul, have ye heard of more severe than when
only tribune? With the same tenor did I administer two successive
consulships; with the same shall this uncontrollable office, the
dictatorship, be administered. So that I shall be found not more
indulgent to these my own soldiers and the soldiers of my country, than
to you, I shudder to call you so, its enemies. Ye shall therefore draw
the sword against me, before I draw it against you. On that side the
signal shall be sounded, on that the shout and onset shall begin, if a
battle must take place. Determine in your minds, on that which neither
your fathers nor grandfathers could; neither those who seceded to the
Sacred Mount, nor yet those who afterwards posted themselves on the
Aventine.