hey
were fired with rage, when we broke through a custom of more than two
hundred years? Still they submitted to this feeling of resentment. We
waged war with the Pelignians in our own name. They who formerly did not
even concede to us the right of defending our own territories through
ourselves, interfered not. They heard that the Sidicinians were
received under our protection, that the Campanians had revolted from
themselves to us, that we were preparing armies against their
confederates, the Samnites; yet they stirred not from the city. Whence
this so great forbearance on their part, except from a knowledge of our
strength and their own? I have it from competent authority, that when
the Samnites complained of us, such an answer was given them by the
Roman senate, as plainly showed that not even themselves insisted that
Latium was under the Roman jurisdiction. Only assume your rights in
demanding that which they tacitly concede to you. If fear prevents any
one from saying this, lo! I pledge myself that I will say it, in the
hearing not only of the Roman people and senate, but of Jupiter himself,
who inhabits the Capitol; that if they wish us to be in confederacy and
alliance with them, they are to receive one consul from us, and one half
of the senate." When he not only recommended these measures boldly, but
promised also his aid, they all, with acclamations of assent, permitted
him to do and say whatever might appear to him conducive to the republic
of the Latin nation and his own honour.

5. When they arrived in Rome, an audience of the senate was granted them
in the Capitol. There, when Titus Manlius the consul, by direction of
the senate, required of them not to make war on their confederates the
Samnites, Annius, as if he had taken the Capitol by arms as a victor,
and were not addressing them as an ambassador protected by the law of
nations, says: "It were time, Titus Manlius, and you, conscript fathers,
to cease at length treating with us on a footing of superiority, when
you see Latium in a most flourishing state by the bounty of the gods in
arms and men, the Samnites being vanquished in war, the Sidicinians and
Campanians our allies, the Volscians now united to us in alliance, and
that your own colonies even prefer the government of Latium to that of
Rome. But since ye do not bring your minds to put an end to your
arbitrary despotism, we, though able by force of arms to vindicate the
independence of Latium, ye