conscript fathers, that compacts, on sureties given, are as sacred as
treaties, in the eyes of all who regard faith between men, with the
same reverence which is paid to duties respecting the gods: but I
insist, that without the order of the people, nothing can be ratified
that is to bind the people. Suppose that, out of the same arrogance
with which the Samnites wrung from us the convention in question, they
had compelled us to repeat the established form of words for the
surrendering of cities, would ye, tribunes, say, that the Roman people
was surrendered? and, that this city, these temples, and consecrated
grounds, these lands and waters, were become the property of the
Samnites? I say no more of the surrender, because our having become
sureties is the point insisted on. Now, suppose we had become sureties
that the Roman people should quit this city; that they should set it
on fire; that they should have no magistrates, no senate, no laws;
that they should, in future, be ruled by kings: the gods forbid, you
say. But, the enormity of the articles lessens not the obligation of a
compact. If there is any thing in which the people can be bound, it
can in all. Nor is there any importance in another circumstance, which
weighs, perhaps, with some: whether a consul, a dictator, or a
praetor, be the surety. And this, indeed, was what even the Samnites
themselves proved, who were not satisfied with the security of the
consuls, but compelled the lieutenants-general, quaestors, and
military tribunes to join them. Let no one, then, demand of me, why I
entered into such a compact, when neither such power was vested in a
consul, and when I could not either to them, insure a peace, of which
I could not command the ratification; or in behalf of you, who had
given me no powers. Conscript fathers, none of the transactions at
Caudium were directed by human wisdom. The immortal gods deprived of
understanding both your generals and those of the enemy. On the one
side we acted not with sufficient caution in the war; on the other,