COEPARIUS. Thus with our rights they sport to please themselves. The mighty always dare do what they will.
CETHEGUS. [Gaily.] Hard luck for Manlius! Yet, a worse mishap Has come to me, as I shall now relate. Listen,—you know my pretty mistress, Livia,— The little wretch has broken faith with me, Just now when I had squandered for her sake The slender wealth that still remained to me.
STATILIUS. Extravagance—the cause of your undoing.
CETHEGUS. Well, as you please; but I will not forego My own desires; these, while the day is fair, To their full measure I will satisfy.
MANLIUS. And I who fought so bravely for the glory And might which now the vaunting tyrants boast! I shall—! If but the brave old band were here, My comrades of the battlefield! But no; The greater part of them, alas, is dead; The rest live scattering in many lands.—
MANLIUS. Oh, what are you, the younger blood, to them? You bend and cringe before authority; You dare not break the chains that bind you fast; You suffer patiently this life of bondage!
LENTULUS. By all the Gods,—although indeed he taunts us, Yet, Romans, is there truth in what he says.
CETHEGUS. Oh, well,—what of it? He is right, we grant, But where shall we begin? Ay, there's the rub.
LENTULUS. Yes, it is true. Too long have we endured This great oppression. Now—now is the time To break the bonds asunder that injustice And vain ambition have about us forged.
STATILIUS. Ah, Lentulus, I understand. Yet hold; For such a thing we need a mighty leader,— With pluck and vision. Where can he be found?