quis te, magne Cato, tacitum aut te, Cosse, relinquat? quis Gracchi genus aut geminos, duo fulmina belli, Scipiadas, cladem Libyae, parvoque potentem Fabricium vel te sulco, Serrane, serentem? quo fessum rapitis, Fabii? tu Maximus ille es, unus qui nobis cunctando restituis rem.
Who, lordly Cato, could leave you unsung, or you, Cossus; who the Gracchan race or the Scipios twain, two thunderbolts of war and the ruin of Carthage, or Fabricius, in penury a prince, or you, Serranus, sowing seed in the soil? Whither, O Fabii, do ye hurry me all breathless? You are he, the mightiest, who could, as no one else, through inaction preserve our state.