32 “Do you suppose that the Romans will be as brave in
war as they are licentious in peace? To our strifes and discords they owe their
fame, and they turn the errors of an enemy to the renown of their own army, an
army which, composed as it is of every variety of nations, is held together by
success and will be broken up by disaster. These Gauls and Germans, and, I
blush to say, these Britons, who, though they lend their lives to support a
stranger’s rule, have been its enemies longer than its subjects, you cannot
imagine to be bound by fidelity and affection. Fear and terror there certainly
are, feeble bonds of attachment; remove them, and those who have ceased to fear
will begin to hate. All the incentives to victory are on our side. The Romans
have no wives to kindle their courage; no parents to taunt them with flight,
man have either no country or one far away. Few in number, dismayed by their ignorance,
looking around upon a sky, a sea, and forests which are all unfamiliar to them;
hemmed in, as it were, and enmeshed, the Gods have delivered them into our
hands. Be not frightened by the idle display, by the glitter of gold and of
silver, which can neither protect nor wound. In the very ranks of the enemy we
shall find our own forces. Britons will acknowledge their own cause; Gauls will
remember past freedom; the other Germans will abandon them, as but lately did
the Usipii. Behind them there is nothing to dread. The forts are ungarrisoned;
the colonies in the hands of aged men; what with disloyal subjects and
oppressive rulers, the towns are ill-affected and rife with discord. On the one
side you have a general and an army; on the other, tribute, the mines, and all
the other penalties of an enslaved people. Whether you endure these for ever,
or instantly avenge them, this field is to decide. Think, therefore, as you
advance to battle, at once of your ancestors and of your posterity.”
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