Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 38
Evan T. Sage, Ph.D., Ed.

47. Such was the argument of Furius and Aemilius.¹ Manlius, I have heard, replied in about the following manner: "It was formerly the custom, conscript Fathers, that tribunes of the people should oppose candidates [2] for triumphs; in this case I am grateful to them because they have conceded this much, whether to me or to the greatness of my achievements —that they do not merely by their silence approve my distinction but even seem ready to propose it if necessary; it is among the ten commissioners (heaven [3] help us!), a council which our ancestors created for awarding victory and its honours to commanders, that I find [4] my opponents. Lucius Furius and Lucius Aemilius forbid me to mount the triumphal car, they strip the garland of victory from my head, these men whom, if the tribunes were obstructing my triumph, I should have summoned as witnesses to what I [5] have done. For my part, conscript Fathers, I grudge no man his distinction; when the tribunes of the people, brave [p. 163]and energetic men, not long ago were opposing the² triumph of Quintus Fabius Labeo,³ you checked them by [6] your authority; he triumphed, although his enemies circulated the story, not that he had waged an illegal war, but that he had not set eyes on an enemy at all;⁴ I who have so often fought with a hundred thousand of the fiercest enemies, who captured or killed more than forty thousand men, who took two of their camps, who left everything on this side of the ridges of Taurus more peaceful than is the land of Italy, am not only cheated out of my triumph but am pleading my case before you, conscript Fathers, with my own lieutenants as [7] my accusers! Their charge, as you have observed, conscript Fathers, is twofold: for they said that I should not have waged war with the Gauls and that the war was conducted rashly [8] and heedlessly. 'The Gauls,' they say, 'were not enemies, but you attacked them while they were peaceful and obedient to [9] our orders.' I shall not ask you, conscript Fathers, to believe about those Gauls also who dwell in Asia what you know in general about the barbarous character of the people of the Gauls and their most deadly hatred of the name of Rome; setting aside the ill repute and ill fame of the race as a whole, judge them [10] by themselves. Would that King Eumenes were here, would that all the cities of Asia were here, and that you could hear them complaining of rather than me accusing [11] the Gauls. Come, send ambassadors around all the cities of Asia and ask them whether they were freed from a more grievous slavery when Antiochus was expelled beyond the [p. 165]ridges of Taurus or when the Gauls [12] were subdued.⁵ Let them tell you how often their fields were devastated, how often plunder was carried away, when they had barely the wealth to ransom their captives and kept hearing of human victims slain and their own [13] children sacrificed. Know that your own allies had been paying tribute to the Gauls and even now, when liberated by you from the king's control, would still have been paying it if I had failed them.