[96]
When those decemvirs shall, in accordance with the law of Rullus,
have led six hundred colonists to that place; when they shall have established there a
hundred decurions, ten augurs, and six priests, what do you suppose their courage, and
violence, and ferocity will be then? They will laugh at and despise Rome, situated among mountains and valleys, stuck up, as it
were, and raised aloft, amid garrets, with not very good roads, and with very narrow streets,
in comparison with their own Capua, stretched out
along a most open plain, and in comparison of their own beautiful thoroughfares. And as for
the lands, they will not think the Vatican or
Pupinian district fit to be compared at all to their fertile and luxuriant plains. And all
the abundance of neigbouring towns which surround us they will compare in laughter and scorn
with their neighbours. They will compare Labici,
Fidenae, Collatia,—even Lanuvium
itself, and Aricia, and Tusculum, with Cales, and Teanum, and Naples, and
Puteoli, and Cumae, and Pompeii, and Nuceria.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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