the state to expire with me? was the empire of the Roman people to fall with me?  Jupiter, most good and great, would not have permitted that the existence of the city, built under the auspices and sanction of the gods to last for ever, should terminate with that of this frail and perishable body.  The Roman people have survived those many and distinguished generals who were all cut off in one war; Flaminius, Paulus, Gracchus, Posthumius Albinus, Marcus Marcellus, Titus Quinctius Crispinus, Cneius Fulvius, my kinsmen the Scipios; and will survive a thousand others who may perish, some by the sword, others by disease; and would the Roman state have been buried with my single corpse?  You yourselves, here in Spain, when your two generals, my father and my uncle, fell, chose Septimus Marcius as your general to oppose the Carthaginians, exulting on account of their recent victory.  And thus I speak, on the supposition that Spain would have been without a leader.  Would Marcus Silanus, who was sent into the province with the same power and the same command as myself, would Lucius Scipio my brother, and Caius Laelius, lieutenant-generals, have been wanting to avenge the majesty of the empire?  Could the armies, the generals themselves, their dignity or their cause, be compared with one another?  And even had you got the better of all these, would you bear arms in conjunction with the Carthaginians against your country, against your countrymen?  Would you wish that Africa should rule Italy, and Carthage the city of Rome?  If so, for what offence on the part of your country?

29.  “An unjust sentence of condemnation, and a miserable and undeserved banishment, formerly induced Coriolanus to go and fight against his country; he was restrained, however, by private duty from public parricide.  What grief, what resentment instigated you?  Was the delay of your pay for a few days, during the illness of your general, a reason of sufficient weight for you to declare war against your country? to revolt from the Roman people and join the Ilergetians? to leave no obligation, divine or human, unviolated?  Without doubt, soldiers, you were mad; nor was the disease which seized my frame more violent than that with which your minds were affected.  I shrink with horror from the relation of what men believed, what they hoped and wished.  Let oblivion cover all these things if possible; if not, however it be, let them be covered in silence.  I must confess my speech must have appeared to you severe and harsh, but how much more harsh, think you, must your actions be than my words!  Do you think it reasonable that I should suffer all the acts which you have committed, and that you should not bear with patience even to hear them mentioned?  But you shall not be reproached even with these things any further.  I could wish that you might as easily forget them as I shall.  Therefore, as far as relates to the general body of you, if you repent of the error you have committed,