"Do not believe the Romans have the same prowess in war as lust in peace. They have grown great on our divisions: they know how to turn the vices of men to the glory of their own army. As it has been drawn together by success, so disaster will dissolve it, unless you suppose that the Gauls and the Germans, and, I am ashamed to say, many of the Britons, who now lend their blood to a foreign usurpation, and in their hearts are rather enemies than slaves, can be retained by faith and affection. Fear and terror are but slender bonds of attachment; when you remove them, as fear ceases terror begins. All the incitements of victory are on our side: no wives inflame the Romans; no parents are there, to call shame on their flight; they have no country, or it is elsewhere. Few in number, fearful from ignorance, gazing on unknown woods and seas, the gods have delivered them shut in and bound into your hands. Let not their vain aspect, the glitter of silver and gold, which neither covers nor wounds, alarm you. In the very line of the enemy we shall find our friends: the Britons will recognise their own cause; the Gauls will recollect their former freedom; the other Germans will desert them, as lately the Usipii have done. No objects of terror are behind them; naught but empty castles, age-ridden colonies; dissension between cruel masters and unwilling slaves, sick and discordant cities. Here is a leader, an army; there are tributes, and payments, and the badges of servitude, which to bear for ever, or instantly to avenge, lies in your arms. Go forth then into the field, and think of your ancestors and your descendants."[9] It is scarcely necessary to say that this speech was written by Tacitus: most certainly nothing half so perfect was ever conceived by Caledonian chief or Caledonian orator, from that day to this. But as the great speeches in antiquity were all written, this gives a specimen, doubtless of the most favourable kind, of the style of oratory which prevailed amongst them. No modern historian has either ventured or been able to put anything so nervous and forcible into the mouth of any orator, how great soever. If he did, it would at once be known that it had not been spoken, but was the fruit of the composition of the closet. Catiline, who, like many other revolutionists, possessed abilities commensurate to his wickedness, thus addressed the conspirators who were associated to overturn the sway of the Roman patricians:--