of the people; and to prove to them how much loss and
disgrace the delay of this war would occasion.

7. The consul, having assembled the people in the field of Mars,
before he dismissed the centuries to the vote, required their
attention, and addressed them thus: "Citizens, you seem to me not to
understand that the question before you is not whether you choose to
have peace or war: for Philip, having already commenced hostilities
with a formidable force, both on land and sea, allows you not that
option. The question is, Whether you must transport your legions to
Macedonia, or admit the enemy into Italy? How important the difference
is, if you never experienced it before, you certainly did in the late
Punic war. For who entertains a doubt, but if, when the Saguntines
were besieged, and implored our protection, we had assisted them with
vigour, as our fathers did the Mamertines, we should have averted
the whole weight of the war upon Spain; which, by our dilatory
proceedings, we suffered to our extreme loss to fall upon Italy? Nor
does it admit a doubt, that we confined this same Philip in Macedonia,
(after he had entered into an engagement with Hannibal by ambassadors
and letters, to cross over into Italy,) by sending Laevinus with a
fleet to make war aggressively upon him. And what we did at that time,
when we had Hannibal to contend with in Italy, do we hesitate to do
now, after Hannibal has been expelled Italy, and the Carthaginians
subdued? Suppose that we allow the king to experience the same
inactivity on our part, while he is taking Athens, as we suffered
Hannibal to experience while he was taking Saguntum: it will not be in
the fifth month, as Hannibal came from Saguntum, but on the fifth day
after he sets sail from Corinth, that he will arrive in Italy. Perhaps
you may not consider Philip as equal to Hannibal; or the Macedonians
to the Carthaginians: certainly, however, you will allow him equal to
Pyrrhus. Equal, do I say? what a vast superiority has the one man over
the other, the one nation over the other! Epirus ever was, and is at
this day, deemed but an inconsiderable accession to the kingdom of
Macedonia. Philip has the entire Peloponnesus under his dominion; even
Argos itself, not more celebrated for its ancient glory than for the
death of Pyrrhus. Now compare our situation. How much more nourishing
was Italy, how much greater its strength, with so many commanders, so
many armies unimpaired, which the Pu