are neither sacred nor inviolable?  Well but, loaded as you are with crimes against both gods and men, you proclaim that you will pass your law this year.  Verily then, on the day I was created consul, it was a disastrous act of the state, much more so even than the day when Publius Valerius the consul fell, if you shall pass it.  Now, first of all,” said he, “Quirites, it is the intention of myself and of my colleague to march the legions against the Volscians and the Aequans.  I know not by what fatality we find the gods more propitious when we are at war than in peace.  How great the danger from those states would have been, had they known that the Capitol was besieged by exiles, it is better to conjecture from what is past, than to learn by actual experience.”

The consul’s harangue had a great effect on the commons:  the patricians, recovering their spirits, believed the state re-established.  The other consul, a more ardent partner than promoter of a measure, readily allowing his colleague to take the lead in measures of such importance, claimed to himself his share of the consular duty in carrying these measures into execution.  Then the tribunes, mocking these declarations as empty, went on to ask how the consuls were going to lead out an army, seeing that no one would allow them to hold a levy?  “But,” replied Quinctius, “we have no need of a levy, since, at the time Publius Valerius gave arms to the commons to recover the Capitol, they all took an oath to him, that they would assemble at the command of the consul, and would not depart without his permission.  We therefore publish an order that all of you, who have sworn, attend to-morrow under arms at the Lake Regillus.”  The tribunes then began to quibble, and wanted to absolve the people from their obligation, asserting that Quinctius was a private person at the time when they were bound by the oath.  But that disregard of the gods, which possesses the present generation, had not yet gained ground:  nor did every one accommodate oaths and laws to his own purposes, by interpreting them as it suited him, but rather adapted his own conduct to them.  Wherefore the tribunes, as there was no hope of obstructing the matter, attempted to delay the departure of the army the more earnestly on this account, because a report had gone out, both that the augurs had been ordered to attend at the Lake Regillius and that a place was to be consecrated, where business might be transacted with the people by auspices:  and whatever had been passed at Rome by tribunician violence, might be repealed there in the assembly.[28] That all would order what the consuls desired:  for that there was no appeal at a greater distance than a mile [29] from the city:  and that the tribunes, if they should come there, would, like the rest of the Quirites, be subjected to the consular authority.  This alarmed them:  but the greatest anxiety which affected their minds was because Quinctius frequently declared that he would not hold an election of consuls.  That the malady of the state was not of an ordinary nature, so that it could be stopped by the ordinary remedies.  That the commonwealth required a dictator, so that whoever attempted to disturb the condition of the state, might feel that from the dictatorship there was no appeal.