Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 5
Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., Ed.

3. The man not only had a nimble wit but was already a practised orator, and he delivered on this occasion a speech to the following effect: [2] "If it has ever been a question, Quirites, whether it was for your sake or their own that the tribunes of the commons have always encouraged sedition, I am certain that the doubt has this year been resolved; [3] and not only do I rejoice that you have at length cleared up a long misunderstanding, but I congratulate both you, - and on your account the state as well, that it has: happened at a time, of all others, when your affairs are prospering. [4] Or is there anyone who doubts that no wrongs which you have suffered, if haply such there have sometimes been, have ever so offended and stirred up the plebeian tribunes as has the boon which the Fathers bestowed upon the commons, when they granted pay for military service? [5] What else do you believe they [p. 11]were afraid of then, or are seeking now to shatter,¹ but the harmony of the orders, which they regard as very apt to overthrow the tribunician authority? [6] Indeed they are like quack-salvers seeking employment, since they desire that there should always be some disease in the body politic, that there may be something which you may call them in to cure. [7] Pray, are you tribunes defending the commons, or attacking them? Are you adversaries of the soldiers, or their advocates? [8] Or perhaps this is your plea: 'Whatever the Fathers do displeases us, be it in behalf of the commons or against them'; and just as masters forbid outsiders to have aught to do with their slaves, and think it right that they should abstain alike from benefiting and from harming them, so you deny the Fathers intercourse with the commons, lest we by our friendliness and liberality encourage them, or they become dutiful and obedient to us. [9] How much more, if you had in you the slightest —I say not patriotism, but —humanity, ought you rather to have favoured, and, so far as in you lay, to have encouraged the kindly spirit of the Fathers and the complaisance of the plebs? [10] And if this harmony should last, who would not make bold to warrant that our empire would soon be the greatest among the neighbouring peoples?