[
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:
Your minds that once did stand erect and strong,
What madness swerves them from their wonted course?
—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.
