1Or do you believe that the Romans have the same courage in war as they have wantonness in peace? 1Made famous by our dissensions and quarrels, they turn the vices of their enemies to the glory of their own army; 1and that army, gathered from the most diverse peoples, just as success holds it together, so will disaster break it apart: unless you think that Gauls and Germans and (shameful to say) many of the Britons, though they lend their blood to a foreign tyranny, having yet been its enemies longer than its slaves, are held to it by loyalty and affection. 1Fear and terror are weak bonds of affection; 2once you remove them, those who have ceased to fear will begin to hate.
2All the incentives to victory are on our side: no wives fire the Romans, no parents are there to reproach them for flight; 2most of them have either no homeland or another one. 2Few in number, frightened by their ignorance, gazing round at the very sky and sea and forests, all of them unknown, the gods have handed them over to us, shut in, as it were, and bound. 3Do not let their empty show frighten you, nor the glitter of gold and silver, which neither protects nor wounds. 3In the very battle line of the enemy we shall find forces of our own: the Britons will recognise their own cause, the Gauls will remember their former liberty, the other Germans will desert them just as the Usipi lately abandoned them.
4And beyond that there is nothing to fear: empty forts, colonies of old men, towns sick and divided between subjects who obey unwillingly and rulers who govern unjustly. 4Here is a general, here an army: there are tributes and mines and the other punishments of the enslaved, which it rests with this field either to endure for ever or to avenge at once. 5So, as you go into battle, think of your ancestors and of your descendants.'