1There, I find, he spoke to this effect: 'Although I am conscious of no fault, Quirites, yet it is with the greatest shame that I have come forward into your sight. 1That you should know this, that this should be handed down to the memory of posterity — that the Aequi and Volsci, lately scarcely a match even for the Hernici, came in arms with impunity to the walls of the city of Rome when Titus Quinctius was consul for the fourth time! 1This disgrace, although we have long been living in such a way that my mind foreboded nothing good, had I known that it threatened this year above all, I should have avoided either by exile or by death, had there been no other way of escaping the office.
3So, if those who bore the arms that were at our gates had been men, Rome could have been taken while I was consul. 3I had had enough of honours, enough and more than enough of life; 3I ought to have died in my third consulship. 3Whom, pray, did the most cowardly of enemies despise? 4Us consuls, or you, Quirites? 4If the fault is in us, take away the command from the unworthy, and if that is too little, exact punishment besides; 5if in you, may there be none of gods or men to punish your sins, Quirites; 5only may you yourselves repent of them. 5It was not your cowardice that they despised, nor in their own courage that they trusted; 5for, so often routed and put to flight, stripped of their camp, mulcted of their land, sent under the yoke, they know both themselves and you; 6the discord of the orders, the poison of this city, the struggles of senators and plebs, while neither we set a limit to our power nor you to your liberty, while you are weary of patrician magistrates and we of plebeian — that is what has raised their spirits.
7In the name of the gods, what do you want? 7You longed for tribunes of the plebs; 7for the sake of harmony we granted them. 7You yearned for decemvirs: we allowed them to be created. 7You grew sick of the decemvirs: we forced them out of office. 8When your anger against the same men persisted after they were private citizens, we allowed men of the noblest birth and highest honours to die or go into exile. 9You wished to elect tribunes of the plebs again: you elected them; 9to make consuls of your own party: though we saw it was unfair to the senators, we allowed even a patrician magistracy to be made a gift to the plebs.
9The tribunes' help, the appeal to the people, plebiscites imposed on the senators, the suppression of our rights under the pretext of equalising the laws — all this we have endured and still endure. 10What end will there be to our discords? 10Shall we ever be allowed to have one city, ever be allowed to have this as a common fatherland? 10We, the defeated, are more content and calm than you, the victors. 11Is it enough that we have to fear you? 11Against us the Aventine is seized, against us the Sacred Mount is occupied; yet we have seen the Esquiline almost captured by the enemy, and no one dislodged the Volscian foe as he climbed the rampart; 11against us you are men, against us you bear arms.