The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty Six - Titus Livius
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THE HISTORY OF ROME; BOOKS NINE TO TWENTY-SIX
Literally Translated, with Notes and Illustrations,
by D. Spillan and Cyrus Edmonds.
TITUS LIVIUS.
BOOK IX.
_Titus Veturius and Spurius Postumius, with their army, surrounded
by the Samnites at the Caudine forks; enter into a treaty, give six
hundred hostages, and are sent under the yoke. The treaty declared
invalid; the two generals and the other sureties sent back to the
Samnites, but are not accepted. Not long after, Papirius Cursor
obliterates this disgrace, by vanquishing the Samnites, sending them
under the yoke, and recovering the hostages. Two tribes added. Appius
Claudius, censor, constructs the Claudian aqueduct, and the Appian
road; admits the sons of freedom into the senate. Successes against
the Apulians, Etruscans, Umbrians, Marsians, Pelignians, Aequans, and
Samnites. Mention made of Alexander the Great, who flourished at this
time; a comparative estimate of his strength, and that of the Roman
people, tending to show, that if he had carried his arms into Italy,
he would not have been as successful there as he had been in the
Eastern countries._
* * * * *
1. This year is followed by the convention of Caudium, so memorable on
account of the misfortune of the Romans, the consuls being Titus
Veturius Calvinus and Spurius Postumius. The Samnites had as their
commander that year Caius Ponius, son to Herennius, born of a father
most highly renowned for wisdom, and himself a consummate warrior and
commander. When the ambassadors, who had been sent to make
restitution, returned, without concluding a peace, he said, "That ye
may not think that no purpose has been effected by this embassy,
whatever degree of anger the deities of heaven had conceived against
us, on account of the infraction of the treaty, has been hereby
expiated. I am very confident, that whatever deities they were, whose
will it was that you should be reduced to the necessity of making the
restitution, which had been demanded according to the treaty, it was
not agreeable to them, that our atonement for the breach of treason
should be so haughtily spurned by the Romans. For what more could
possibly be done towards appeasing the gods, and softening the anger
of men, than we have done? The effects of the enemy, taken among the
spoils, which appeared to be our own by the right of war, we restored:
the authors of the war, as we could not deliver them up alive, we
delivered them dead: their goods we carried to Rome, lest by retaining
them, any degree of guilt should remain among us. What more, Roman, do
I owe to thee? what to the treaty? what to the gods, the guarantees of
the treaty? What arbitrator shall I call in to judge of your
resentment, and of my punishment? I decline none; neither nation nor
private person. But if nothing in human law is left to the weak
against stronger, I will appeal to the gods, the avengers of
intolerant arrogance, and will beseech them to turn their wrath
against those for whom neither the restoration of their own effects
nor additional heaps of other men's property, can suffice, whose
cruelty is not satiated by the death of the guilty, by the surrender
of their lifeless bodies, nor by their goods accompanying the
surrender of the owner; who cannot be appeased otherwise than by
giving them our blood to drink, and our entrails to be torn. Samnites,
war is just to those for whom it is necessary, and arms are clear of
impiety for those who have no hope left but in arms. Wherefore, as in
every human undertaking, it is of the utmost importance what matter
men may set about with the favour, what under the displeasure of the
gods, be assured that the former wars ye waged in opposition to the
gods more than to men; in this, which is now impending, ye will act
under the immediate guidance of the gods themselves."
2. After uttering these predictions, not more cheering than true, he
led out the troops, and placed his camp about Caudium as much out of
view as possible. From thence he sent to Calatia, where he heard that
the Roman consuls were encamped, ten soldiers, in the habit of
shepherds, and ordered them to keep some cattle feeding in several
different places, at a small distance from the Roman posts; and that,
when they fell in with any of their foragers, they should all agree in
the same story, that the legions of the Samnites were then in Apulia,
that they were besieging Luceria with their whole force, and very near
taking it by storm. Such a rumour had been industriously spread
before, and had already reached the Romans; but these prisoners
increased the credit of it, especially as they all concurred in the
same report. There was no doubt but that the Romans would carry
succour to the Lucerians, as being good and faithful allies; and for
this further reason, lest all Apulia, through apprehension of the
impending danger, might go over to the enemy. The only point of
deliberation was, by what road they should go. There were two roads
leading to Luceria, one along the coast of the upper sea, wide and
open; but, as it was the safer, so it was proportionably longer: the
other, which was shorter, through the Caudine forks. The nature of the
place is this: there are two deep glens, narrow and covered with wood,
connected together by mountains ranging on both sides from one to the
other; between these lies a plain of considerable extent, enclosed in
the middle, abounding in grass and water, and through the middle of
which the passage runs: but before you can arrive at it, the first
defile must be passed, while the only way back is through the road by
which you entered it; or if in case of resolving to proceed forward,
you must go by the other glen, which is still more narrow and
difficult. Into this plain the Romans, having marched down their
troops by one of those passes through the cleft of a rock, when they
advanced onward to the other defile, found it blocked up by trees
thrown across, and a mound of huge stones lying in their way. When the
stratagem of the enemy now became apparent, there is seen at the same
time a body of troops on the eminence over the glen. Hastening back,
then, they proceed to retrace the road by which they had entered; they
found that also shut up by such another fence, and men in arms. Then,
without orders, they halted; amazement took possession of their minds,
and a strange kind of numbness seized their limbs: they then remained
a long time motionless and silent, each looking to the other, as if
each thought the other more capable of judging and advising than
himself. After some time, when they saw that the consul's pavilions
were being erected, and that some were getting ready the implements
for throwing up works, although they were sensible that it must appear
ridiculous the attempt to raise a fortification in their present
desperate condition, and when almost every hope was lost, would be an
object of necessity, yet, not to add a fault to their misfortunes,
they all, without being advised or ordered by any one, set earnestly
to work, and enclosed a camp with a rampart, close to the water, while
themselves, besides that the enemy heaped insolent taunts on them,
seemed with melancholy to acknowledge the apparent fruitlessness of
their toil and labour. The lieutenants-general and tribunes, without
being summoned to consultation, (for there was no room for either
consultation or remedy,) assembled round the dejected consul; while
the soldiers, crowding to the general's quarters, demanded from their
leaders that succour, which it was hardly in the power of the immortal
gods themselves to afford them.
3. Night came on them while lamenting their situation rather than
consulting, whilst they urged expedients, each according to his
temper; one crying out, "Let us go over those fences of the roads;"
others, "over the steeps; through the woods; any way, where arms can
be carried. Let us be but permitted to come to the enemy, whom we have
been used to conquer now near thirty years. All places will be level
and plain to a Roman, fighting against the perfidious Samnite."
Another would say, "Whither, or by what way can we go? Do we expect to
remove the mountains from their foundations? While these cliffs hang
over us, by what road will you reach the enemy? Whether armed or
unarmed, brave or dastardly, we are all, without distinction, captured
and vanquished. The enemy will not even show us a weapon by which we
might die with honour. He will finish the war without moving from his
seat." In such discourse, thinking of neither food nor rest, the night
was passed. Nor could the Samnites, though in circumstances so joyous,
instantly determine how to act: it was therefore universally agreed
that Herennius Pontius, father of the general, should be consulted by
letter. He was now grown feeble through age, and had withdrawn
himself, not only from all military, but also from all civil
occupations; yet, notwithstanding the decline of his bodily strength,
his mind retained its full vigour. When he heard that the Roman armies
were shut up at the Caudine forks between the two glens, being
consulted by his son's messenger, he gave his opinion, that they
should all be immediately dismissed from thence unhurt. On this
counsel being rejected, and the same messenger returning a second
time, he recommended that they should all, to a man, be put to death.
When these answers, so opposite to each other, like those of an
ambiguous oracle, were given, although his son in particular
considered that the powers of his father's mind, together with those
of his body, had been impaired by age, was yet prevailed on, by the
general desire of all, to send for him to consult him. The old man, we
are told, complied without reluctance, and was carried in a waggon to
the camp, where, when summoned to give his advice, he spoke in such
way as to make no alteration in his opinions; he only added the
reasons for them. That "by his first plan, which he esteemed the best,
he meant, by an act of extraordinary kindness, to establish perpetual
peace and friendship with a most powerful nation: by the other, to put
off the return of war to the distance of many ages, during which the
Roman state, after the loss of those two armies, could not easily
recover its strength." A third plan there was not. When his son, and
the other chiefs, went on to ask him if "a plan of a middle kind might
not be adopted; that they both should be dismissed unhurt, and, at the
same time, by the right of war, terms imposed on them as vanquished?"
"That, indeed," said he, "is a plan of such a nature, as neither
procures friends or removes enemies. Only preserve those whom ye would
irritate by ignominious treatment. The Romans are a race who know not
how to sit down quiet under defeat; whatever that is which the present
necessity shall brand will rankle in their breasts for ever, and will
not suffer them to rest, until they have wreaked manifold vengeance on
your heads." Neither of these plans was approved, and Herennius was
carried home from the camp.
4. In the Roman camp also, when many fruitless efforts to force a
passage had been made, and they were now destitute of every means of
subsistence, forced by necessity, they send ambassadors, who were
first to ask peace on equal terms; which, if they did not obtain, they
were to challenge the enemy to battle. To this Pontius answered, that
"the war was at an end; and since, even in their present vanquished
and captive state, they were not willing to acknowledge their
situation, he would send them under the yoke unarmed, each with a
single garment; that the other conditions of peace should be such as
were just between the conquerors and the conquered. If their troops
would depart, and their colonies be withdrawn out of the territories
of the Samnites; for the future, the Romans and Samnites, under a
treaty of equality, shall live according to their own respective laws.
On these terms he was ready to negotiate with the consuls: and if any
of these should not be accepted, he forbade the ambassadors to come to
him again." When the result of this embassy was made known, such
general lamentation suddenly arose, and such melancholy took
possession of them, that had they been told that all were to die on
the spot, they could not have felt deeper affliction. After silence
continued a long time, and the consuls were not able to utter a word,
either in favour of a treaty so disgraceful, or against a treaty so
necessary; at length, Lucius Lentulus, who was the first among the
lieutenants-general, both in respect of bravery, and of the public
honours which he had attained, addressed them thus: "Consuls, I have
often heard my father say, that he was the only person in the Capitol
who did not advise the senate to ransom the state from the Gauls with
gold; and these he would not concur in, because they had not been
enclosed with a trench and rampart by the enemy, (who were remarkably
slothful with respect to works and raising fortifications,) and
because they might sally forth, if not without great danger, yet
without certain destruction. Now if, in like manner as they had it in
their power to run down from the Capitol in arms against their foe, as
men besieged have often sallied out on the besiegers, it were possible
for us to come to blows with the enemy, either on equal or unequal
ground, I would not be wanting in the high quality of my father's
spirit in stating my advice. I acknowledge, indeed, that death, in
defence of our country, is highly glorious; and I am ready, either to
devote myself for the Roman people and the legions, or to plunge into
the midst of the enemy. But in this spot I behold my country: in this
spot, the whole of the Roman legions, and unless these choose to rush
on death in defence of their own individual characters, what have they
which can be preserved by their death? The houses of the city, some
may say, and the walls of it, and the crowd who dwell in it, by which
the city is inhabited. But in fact, in case of the destruction of this
army, all these are betrayed, not preserved. For who will protect
them? An unwarlike and unarmed multitude, shall I suppose? Yes, just
as they defended them against the attack of the Gauls. Will they call
to their succour an army from Veii, with Camillus at its head? Here on
the spot, I repeat, are all our hopes and strength; by preserving
which, we preserve our country; by delivering them up to death, we
abandon and betray our country. But a surrender is shameful and
ignominious. True: but such ought to be our affection for our country,
that we should save it by our own disgrace, if necessity required, as
freely as by our death. Let therefore that indignity be undergone, how
great soever, and let us submit to that necessity which even the gods
themselves do not overcome. Go, consuls, ransom the state for arms,
which your ancestors ransomed with gold."
5. The consuls having gone to Pontius to confer with him, when he
talked, in the strain of a conqueror, of a treaty, they declared that
such could not be concluded without an order of the people, nor
without the ministry of the heralds, and the other customary rites.
Accordingly the Caudine peace was not ratified by settled treaty, as
is commonly believed, and even asserted by Claudius, but by
conventional sureties. For what occasion would these be either for
sureties or hostages in the former case, where the ratification is
performed by the imprecation, "that whichever nation shall give
occasion to the said terms being violated, may Jupiter strike that
nation in like manner as the swine is struck by the heralds." The
consuls, lieutenants-general, quaestors, and military tribunes, became
sureties; and the names of all these who became sureties are extant;
where, had the business been transacted by treaty, none would have
appeared but those of the two heralds. On account of the necessary
delay of the treaty six hundred horsemen were demanded as hostages,
who were to suffer death if the compact were not fulfilled; a time was
then fixed for delivering up the hostages, and sending away the troops
disarmed. The return of the consuls renewed the general grief in the
camp, insomuch that the men hardly refrained from offering violence to
them, "by whose rashness," they said, "they had been brought into such
a situation; and through whose cowardice they were likely to depart
with greater disgrace than they came. They had employed no guide
through the country, nor scouts; but were sent out blindly, like
beasts into a pitfall" They cast looks on each other, viewed earnestly
the arms which they must presently surrender; while their persons
would be subject to the whim of the enemy: figured to themselves the
hostile yoke, the scoffs of the conquerors, their haughty looks, and
finally, thus disarmed, their march through the midst of an armed foe.
In a word, they saw with horror the miserable journey of their
dishonoured band through the cities of the allies; and their return
into their own country, to their parents, whither themselves, and
their ancestors, had so often come in triumph. Observing, that "they
alone had been conquered without a fight, without a weapon thrown,
without a wound; that they had not been permitted to draw their
swords, nor to engage the enemy. In vain had arms, in vain had
strength, in vain had courage been given them." While they were giving
vent to such grievous reflections, the fatal hour of their disgrace
arrived, which was to render every circumstance still more shocking in
fact, than they had preconceived it in their imaginations. First, they
were ordered to go out, beyond the rampart, unarmed, and with single
garments; then the hostages were surrendered, and carried into
custody. The lictors were next commanded to depart from the consuls,
and the robes of the latter were stripped off. This excited such a
degree of commiseration in the breasts of those very men, who a little
before, pouring execrations upon them, had proposed that they should
be delivered up and torn to pieces, that every one, forgetting his own
condition, turned away his eyes from that degradation of so high a
dignity, as from a spectacle too horrid to behold.
6. First, the consuls, nearly half naked, were sent under the yoke;
then each officer, according to his rank, was exposed to disgrace, and
the legions successively. The enemy stood on each side under arms,
reviling and mocking them; swords were pointed at most of them,
several were wounded and some even slain, when their looks, rendered
too fierce by the indignity to which they were subjected, gave offence
to the conquerors. Thus were they led under the yoke; and what was
still more intolerable, under the eyes of the enemy. When they had got
clear of the defile, they seemed as if they had been drawn up from the
infernal regions, and then for the first time beheld the light; yet,
when they viewed the ignominious appearance of the army, the light
itself was more painful to them than any kind of death could have
been; so that although they might have arrived at Capua before night,
yet, uncertain with respect to the fidelity of the allies, and because
shame embarrassed them, in need of every thing, they threw themselves
carelessly on the ground, on each side of the road: which being told
at Capua, just compassion for their allies got the better of the
arrogance natural to the Campanians. They immediately sent to the
consuls their ensigns of office, the fasces and lictors; to the
soldiers, arms, horses, clothes, and provisions in abundance: and, on
their approach to Capua, the whole senate and people went out to meet
them, and performed every proper office of hospitality, both public
and private. But the courtesy, kind looks, and address of the allies,
could not only not draw a word from them, but it could not even
prevail on them to raise their eyes, or look their consoling friends
in the face, so completely did shame, in addition to grief, oblige
them to shun the conversation and society of these their friends. Next
day, when some young nobles, who had been sent from Capua, to escort
them on their road to the frontiers of Campania, returned, they were
called into the senate-house, and, in answer to the inquiries of the
elder members, said, that "to them they seemed deeply sunk in
melancholy and dejection; that the whole body moved on in silence,
almost as if dumb; the former genius of the Romans was prostrated, and
that their spirit had been taken from them, together with their arms.
Not one returned a salute, nor returned an answer to those who greeted
them; as if, through fear, they were unable to utter a word; as if
their necks still carried the yoke under which they had been sent.
That the Samnites had obtained a victory, not only glorious, but
lasting also; for they had subdued, not Rome merely, as the Gauls had
formerly done, but what was a much wore warlike achievement, the Roman
courage." When these remarks were made and attentively listened to,
and the almost extinction of the Roman name was lamented in this
assembly of faithful allies, Ofilius Calavius, son of Ovius, a man
highly distinguished, both by his birth and conduct, and at this time
further respectable on account of his age, is said to have declared
that he entertained a very different opinion in the case. "This
obstinate silence," said he, "those eyes fixed on the earth,--those
ears deaf to all comfort,--with the shame of beholding the light,--are
indications of a mind calling forth, from its inmost recesses, the
utmost exertions of resentment. Either he was ignorant of the temper
of the Romans, or that silence would shortly excite, among the
Samnites, lamentable cries and groans; for that the remembrance of the
Caudine peace would be much more sorrowful to the Samnites than to the
Romans. Each side would have their own native spirit, wherever they
should happen to engage, but the Samnites would not, every where, have
the glens of Caudium."
7. Their disaster was, by this time, well known at Rome also. At
first, they heard that the troops were shut up; afterwards the news of
the ignominious peace caused greater affliction than had been felt for
their danger. On the report of their being surrounded, a levy of men
was begun; but when it was understood that the army had surrendered in
so disgraceful a manner, the preparations were laid aside; and
immediately, without any public directions, a general mourning took
place, with all the various demonstrations of grief. The shops were
shut; and all business ceased in the forum, spontaneously, before it
was proclaimed. Laticlaves [Footnote: In the original, _lati clavi_.
The latus clavus was a tunic, or vest, ornamented with a broad stripe
of purple on the fore part, worn by the senators; the knights wore a
similar one, only ornamented with a narrower stripe. Gold rings were
also used as badges of distinction, the common people wore iron ones.]
and gold rings were laid aside: and the public were in greater
tribulation, if possible, than the army itself; they were not only
enraged against the commanders, the advisers and sureties of the peace,
but detested even the unoffending soldiers, and asserted, that they
ought not to be admitted into the city or its habitations. But these
transports of passion were allayed by the arrival of the troops, which
excited compassion even in the angry; for entering into the city, not
like men returning into their country with unexpected safety, but in
the habit and with the looks of captives, late in the evening; they hid
themselves so closely in their houses, that, for the next, and several
following days, not one of them could bear to come in sight of the
forum, or of the public. The consuls, shut up in private, transacted no
official business, except that which was wrung from them by a decree of
the senate, to nominate a dictator to preside at the elections. They
nominated Quintus Fabius Ambustus, and as master of the horse Publius
Aelius Paetus. But they having been irregularly appointed, there were
substituted in their room, Marcus Aemilius Papus dictator, and Lucius
Valerius Flaccus master of the horse. But neither did these hold the
elections: and the people being dissatisfied with all the magistrates
of that year, an interregnum ensued. The interreges were, Quintus
Fabius Maximus and Marcus Valerius Corvus, who elected consuls Quintus
Publilius Philo, and Lucius Papirius Cursor a second time; a choice
universally approved, for there were no commanders at that time of
higher reputation.
8. They entered into office on the day they were elected, for so it
had been determined by the fathers. When the customary decrees of the
senate were passed, they proposed the consideration of the Caudine
peace; and Publilius, who was in possession of the fasces, said,
"Spurius Postumius, speak:" he arose with just the same countenance
with which he had passed under the yoke, and delivered himself to this
effect: "Consuls, I am well aware that I have been called up first
with marked ignominy, not with honour; and that I am ordered to speak,
not as being a senator, but as a person answerable as well for an
unsuccessful war as for a disgraceful peace. However, since the
question propounded by you is not concerning our guilt, or our
punishment; waving a defence, which would not be very difficult,
before men who are not unacquainted with human casualties or
necessities, I shall briefly state my opinion on the matter in
question; which opinion will testify, whether I meant to spare myself
or your legions, when I engaged as surety to the convention, whether
dishonourable or necessary: by which, however, the Roman people are
not bound, inasmuch as it was concluded without their order; nor is
any thing liable to be forfeited to the Samnites, in consequence of
it, except our persons. Let us then be delivered up to them by the
heralds, naked, and in chains. Let us free the people of the religious
obligation, if we have bound them under any such; so that there may be
no restriction, divine or human, to prevent your entering on the war
anew, without violating either religion or justice. I am also of
opinion, that the consuls, in the mean time, enlist, arm, and lead out
an army; but that they should not enter the enemy's territories before
every particular, respecting the surrender of us, be regularly
executed. You, O immortal gods! I pray and beseech that, although it
has not been your will that Spurius Postumius and Titus Veturius, as
consuls, should wage war with success against the Samnites, ye may yet
deem it sufficient to have seen us sent under the yoke; to have seen
us bound under an infamous convention; to have seen us delivered into
the hands of our foes naked and shackled, taking on our own heads the
whole weight of the enemy's resentment. And grant, that the consuls
and legions of Rome may wage war against the Samnites, with the same
fortune with which every war has been waged before we became consuls."
On his concluding this speech, men's minds were so impressed with both
admiration and compassion, that now they could scarce believe him to
be the same Spurius Postumius who had been the author of so shameful a
peace; again lamenting, that such a man was likely to undergo, among
the enemy, a punishment even beyond that of others, through resentment
for annulling the peace. When all the members, extolling him with
praises, expressed their approbation of his sentiments, a protest was
attempted for a time by Lucius Livius and Quintus Maelius, tribunes of
the commons, who said, that "the people could not be acquitted of the
religious obligation by the consuls being given up, unless all things
were restored to the Samnites in the same state in which they had been
at Caudium; nor had they themselves deserved any punishment, for
having, by becoming sureties to the peace, preserved the army of the
Roman people; nor, finally, could they, being sacred and inviolable,
be surrendered to the enemy or treated with violence."