1I am not afraid that anyone may think that I am saying these things grandly to encourage you, while in my heart I myself feel otherwise. 2I was free to go with my army to Spain, my own province, for which I had already set out, where I should have had both my brother to share my counsels and my danger, and Hasdrubal rather than Hannibal as my enemy, and undoubtedly a lesser weight of war; 3nevertheless, as I was sailing along the coast of Gaul, on hearing of this enemy I landed, sent my cavalry ahead and moved my camp to the Rhône. 4In a cavalry battle, with the part of my forces with which fortune gave me the chance of engaging, I routed the enemy; 4his column of infantry, which was being hurried along like men in flight, I could not overtake by land, so I returned to my ships, and with all the speed I could, by so long a circuit of sea and land, I met this fearsome enemy almost at the foot of the Alps.
5Do I seem to have stumbled on him unawares while trying to avoid a contest, or to be meeting him on his very tracks, provoking him and dragging him to a decisive fight? 6I am glad to put it to the test whether in these twenty years the earth has suddenly brought forth a different breed of Carthaginians, or whether they are the same men who fought at the Aegates islands and whom you let go from Eryx valued at eighteen denarii a head, and whether this Hannibal is a rival of the journeys of Hercules, as he himself claims, or one left by his father as a tributary, a tax-payer and a slave of the Roman people.
8If his crime at Saguntum did not drive him on like a fury, he would surely think back, if not on his conquered country, then at least on his house and his father and the treaties written in the hand of Hamilcar, who at the order of our consul withdrew his garrison from Eryx, who, chafing and grieving, accepted the harsh terms imposed on the defeated Carthaginians, who on leaving Sicily agreed to pay tribute to the Roman people. 10And so, soldiers, I would have you fight not only with the spirit you usually show against other enemies, but with a certain indignation and anger, as if you were to see your own slaves suddenly taking up arms against you.
10We could have killed them when they were shut up at Eryx by the most extreme punishment known to men, starvation; 11we could have taken our victorious fleet across to Africa and destroyed Carthage within a few days without any fighting: we granted pardon when they begged, we released them from the siege, we made peace with the defeated, and afterwards we counted them under our protection when they were hard pressed by the African war. 13In return for these favours they come, following a madcap youth, to attack our country. 13And I wish that this contest were for your honour only and not for your survival. 14It is not for possession of Sicily and Sardinia, which were once in dispute, but for Italy that you have to fight.
15Nor is there another army behind us which, if we do not win, could withstand the enemy, nor are there other Alps, while they are crossing which new defences could be prepared. 15Here we must make our stand, soldiers, as if we were fighting before the walls of Rome. 16Let each man believe that with his arms he is protecting not his own body but his wife and little children; 16nor let him think only of his cares at home, but let him reflect again and again on this: that the Senate and the Roman people are now watching our hands, and that as our strength and courage prove to be, such will be the fortune of that city and of the Roman empire hereafter.'