Your minds that once did stand erect and strong,—and so on, in most impressive style. But you are [p. 27] familiar with the poem, and, after all, the actual speech of Appius is still extant. It was delivered seventeen years after his second consulship, although ten years had intervened between the two consulships and he had been censor before he was consul. Hence, it is known that he was undoubtedly an old man at the time of the war with Pyrrhus, and yet such is the story as we have it by tradition.
What madness swerves them from their wonted course?
[16]
yet when the sentiment of the senate was
inclining towards peace and an alliance with Pyrrhus,
he did not hesitate to say what Ennius has thus put
into verse:
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