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During these transactions at Rome, C. Manlius sent deputies to Q. Marcius Rex, with orders to accost him in the following manner:—

“We call gods and men to witness, O general, that we have neither taken up arms against our country, nor with a view to injure any particular person, but to defend ourselves from oppression, wretched and needy as we are, through the violence and cruelty of usurers; most of us deprived of our habitations, and all of our reputation and fortunes; none of us allowed the protection of the laws, as our forefathers were, nor so much as the liberty of our persons, when nothing else is left us: such has been the cruelty of the usurers and prætors.25 Your ancestors, out of compassion to the people of Rome, have often relieved their wants by their decrees; and but lately, in our own times, on account of the great pressure of debts, they have obliged the creditors to compound, and that with the approbation of every worthy man. The people have often taken arms, and separated from the senate, prompted either by a passion for power, or the insolence of their magistrates. As for us, we neither desire power nor riches, which are the sources of all the wars and contests among men: liberty is our aim; that liberty which no brave man will lose but with his life. Wherefore we conjure you and the senate to espouse the interests of your wretched fellow-citizens, to restore to us the protection of the laws, torn from us by the iniquity of the prætors; and not reduce us to the fatal necessity of studying to perish in such a manner as amply to avenge our blood on those who have oppressed us.”