The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty Six - Titus Livius
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49. On the other side of the field, Paulus, though severely wounded
from a sling in the very commencement of the battle, with a compact
body of troops, frequently opposed himself to Hannibal, and in several
quarters restored the battle, the Roman cavalry protecting him; who,
at length, when the consul had not strength enough even to manage his
horse, dismounted from their horses. And when some one brought
intelligence that the consul had ordered the cavalry to dismount, it
is said that Hannibal observed, "How much rather would I that he
delivered them to me in chains." The fight maintained by the
dismounted cavalry was such as might be expected, when the victory was
undoubtedly on the side of the enemy, the vanquished preferring death
in their places to flight; and the conquerors, who were enraged at
them for delaying the victory, butchering those whom they could not
put to flight. They at length, however, drove the few who remained
away, worn out with exertion and wounds. After that they were all
dispersed, and such as could, sought to regain their horses for
flight. Cneius Lentulus, a military tribune, seeing, as he rode by,
the consul sitting upon a stone and covered with blood, said to him:
"Lucius Aemilius! the only man whom the gods ought to regard as being
guiltless of this day's disaster, take this horse, while you have any
strength remaining, and I am with you to raise you up and protect you.
Make not this battle more calamitous by the death of a consul. There
is sufficient matter for tears and grief without this addition." In
reply the consul said: "Do thou indeed go on and prosper, Cneius
Servilius, in your career of virtue! But beware lest you waste in
bootless commiseration the brief opportunity of escaping from the
hands of the enemy. Go and tell the fathers publicly, to fortify the
city of Rome, and garrison it strongly before the victorious enemy
arrive: and tell Quintus Fabius individually, that Lucius Aemilius
lived, and now dies, mindful of his injunctions. Allow me to expire
amid these heaps of my slaughtered troops, that I may not a second
time be accused after my consulate, or stand forth as the accuser of
my colleague, in order to defend my own innocence by criminating
another." While finishing these words, first a crowd of their flying
countrymen, after that the enemy, came upon them; they overwhelm the
consul with their weapons, not knowing who he was: in the confusion
his horse rescued Lentulus. After that they fly precipitately. Seven
thousand escaped to the lesser camp, ten to the greater, about two
thousand to the village itself of Cannae who were immediately
surrounded by Carthalo and the cavalry, no fortifications protecting
the village. The other consul, whether by design or by chance, made
good his escape to Venusia with about seventy horse, without mingling
with any party of the flying troops. Forty thousand foot, two thousand
seven hundred horse, there being an equal number of citizens and
allies, are said to have been slain. Among both the quaestors of the
consuls, Lucius Atilius and Lucius Furius Bibaculus; twenty-one
military tribunes; several who had passed the offices of consul,
praetor, and aedile; among these they reckon Cneius Servilius
Germinus, and Marcus Minucius, who had been master of the horse on a
former year, and consul some years before: moreover eighty, either
senators, or who had borne those offices by which they might be
elected into the senate, and who had voluntarily enrolled themselves
in the legions. Three thousand infantry and three hundred cavalry are
said to have been captured in that battle.
50. Such is the battle of Cannae, equal in celebrity to the defeat at
the Allia: but as it was less important in respect to those things
which happened after it, because the enemy did not follow up the blow,
so was it more important and more horrible with respect to the
slaughter of the army; for with respect to the flight at the Allia, as
it betrayed the city, so it preserved the army. At Cannae, scarcely
seventy accompanied the flying consul: almost the whole army shared
the fate of the other who died. The troops collected in the two camps
being a half-armed multitude without leaders, those in the larger send
a message to the others, that they should come over to them at night,
when the enemy was oppressed with sleep, and wearied with the battle,
and then, out of joy, overpowered with feasting: that they would go in
one body to Canusium. Some entirely disapproved of that advice. "For
why," said they, "did not those who sent for them come themselves,
since there would be equal facility of forming a junction? Because,
evidently, all the intermediate space was crowded with the enemy, and
they would rather expose the persons of others to so great a danger
than their own." Others did not so much disapprove, as want courage to
fulfil the advice. Publius Sempronius Tuditanus, a military tribune,
exclaims, "Would you rather, then, be captured by the most rapacious
and cruel enemy, and have a price set upon your heads, and have your
value ascertained by men who will ask whether you are Roman citizens
or Latin confederates, in order that from your miseries and
indignities honour may be sought for another? Not you, at least, if
you are the fellow-citizens of Lucius Aemilius, the consul who
preferred an honourable death to a life of infamy, and of so many
brave men who lie heaped around him. But, before the light overtakes
us and more numerous bodies of the enemy beset the way, let us break
through those disorderly and irregular troops who are making a noise
at our gates. By the sword and courage, a road may be made through
enemies, however dense. In a wedge we shall make our way through this
loose and disjointed band, as if nothing opposed us. Come along with
me therefore, ye who wish the safety of yourselves and the state."
Having thus said, he draws his sword, and forming a wedge, goes
through the midst of the enemy; and as the Numidians discharged their
javelins on their right side, which was exposed, they transferred
their shields to the right hand, and thus escaped, to the number of
six hundred, to the greater camp; and setting out thence forthwith,
another large body having joined them, arrived safe at Canusium. These
measures were taken by the vanquished, according to the impulse of
their tempers, which his own disposition or which accident gave to
each, rather than in consequence of any deliberate plan of their own,
or in obedience to the command of any one.
51. When all others, surrounding the victorious Hannibal,
congratulated him, and advised that, having completed so great a
battle, he should himself take the remainder of the day and the
ensuing night for rest, and grant it to his exhausted troops;
Maharbal, prefect of the cavalry, who was of opinion that no time
should be lost, said to him, "Nay, rather, that you may know what has
been achieved by this battle, five days hence you shall feast in
triumph in the Capitol. Follow me: I will go first with the cavalry,
that they may know that I am arrived before they know of me as
approaching." To Hannibal this project appeared too full of joy, and
too great for his mind to embrace it and determine upon it at the
instant. Accordingly, he replied to Maharbal, that "he applauded his
zeal, but that time was necessary to ponder the proposal." Upon this
Maharbal observed, "Of a truth the gods have not bestowed all things
upon the same person. You know how to conquer, Hannibal; but you do
not know how to make use of your victory." That day's delay is firmly
believed to have been the preservation of the city and the empire. On
the following day, as soon as it dawned, they set about gathering the
spoils and viewing the carnage, which was shocking, even to enemies.
So many thousands of Romans were lying, foot and horse promiscuously,
according as accident had brought them together, either in the battle
or in the flight. Some, whom their wounds, pinched by the morning
cold, had roused, as they were rising up, covered with blood, from the
midst of the heaps of slain, were overpowered by the enemy. Some too
they found lying alive with their thighs and hams cut who, laying bare
their necks and throats, bid them drain the blood that remained in
them. Some were found with their heads plunged into the earth, which
they had excavated; having thus, as it appeared, made pits for
themselves, and having suffocated themselves by overwhelming their
faces with the earth which they threw over them. A living Numidian,
with lacerated nose and ears, stretched beneath a lifeless Roman who
lay upon him, principally attracted the attention of all; for when his
hands were powerless to grasp his weapon, turning from rage to
madness, he had died in the act of tearing his antagonist with his
teeth.
52. The spoils having been gathered for a great part of the day,
Hannibal leads his troops to storm the lesser camp, and, first of all,
interposing a trench, cuts it off from the river. But as the men were
fatigued with toil, watching, and wounds, a surrender was made sooner
than he expected. Having agreed to deliver up their arms and horses,
on condition that the ransom of every Roman should be three hundred
denarii, for an ally two hundred, for a slave one hundred, and that on
payment of that ransom they should be allowed to depart with single
garments, they received the enemy into the camp, and were all
delivered into custody, the citizens and allies being kept separate.
While the time is being spent there, all who had strength or spirit
enough, to the number of four thousand foot and two hundred horse,
quitted the greater camp and arrived at Canusium; some in a body,
others widely dispersed through the country, which was no less secure
a course: the camp itself was surrendered to the enemy by the wounded
and timid troops, on the same terms as the other was. A very great
booty was obtained; and with the exception of the men and horses, and
what silver there was which was for the most part on the trappings of
the horses; for they had but very little in use for eating from,
particularly in campaign; all the rest of the booty was given up to be
plundered. Then he ordered the bodies of his own troops to be
collected for burial. They are said to have been as many as eight
thousand of his bravest men. Some authors relate, that the Roman
consul also was carefully searched for and buried. Those who escaped
to Canusium, being received by the people of that place within their
walls and houses only, were assisted with corn, clothes, and
provisions for their journey, by an Apulian lady, named Busa,
distinguished for her family and riches; in return for which
munificence, the senate afterwards, when the war was concluded,
conferred honours upon her.
53. But, though there were four military tribunes there, Fabius
Maximus of the first legion, whose father had been dictator the former
year; and of the second legion, Lucius Publicius Bibulus and Publius
Cornelius Scipio; and of the third legion, Appius Claudius Pulcher,
who had been aedile the last year; by the consent of all, the supreme
command was vested in Publius Scipio, then a very young man, and
Appius Claudius. To these, while deliberating with a few others on the
crisis of their affairs, Publius Furius Philus, the son of a man of
consular dignity, brings intelligence, "That it was in vain that they
cherished hopes which could never be realized: that the state was
despaired of, and lamented as lost. That certain noble youths, the
chief of whom was Lucius Caecilius Metellus, turned their attention to
the sea and ships, in order that, abandoning Italy, they might escape
to some king." When this calamity, which was not only dreadful in
itself, but new, and in addition to the numerous disasters they had
sustained, had struck them motionless with astonishment and stupor;
and while those who were present gave it as their opinion that a
council should be called to deliberate upon it, young Scipio, the
destined general of this war, asserts, "That it is not a proper
subject for deliberation: that courage and action, and not
deliberation, were necessary in so great a calamity. That those who
wished the safety of the state would attend him forthwith in arms;
that in no place was the camp of the enemy more truly, than where such
designs were meditated." He immediately proceeds, attended by a few,
to the lodging of Metellus; and finding there the council of youths of
which he had been apprized, he drew his sword over the heads of them,
deliberating, and said, "With sincerity of soul I swear that neither
will I myself desert the cause of the Roman republic, nor will I
suffer any other citizen of Rome to desert it. If knowingly I violate
my oath, then, O Jupiter, supremely great and good, mayest thou visit
my house, my family, and my fortune with perdition the most horrible!
I require you, Lucius Caecilius, and the rest of you who are present,
to take this oath; and let the man who shall not take it be assured,
that this sword is drawn against him." Terrified, as though they were
beholding the victorious Hannibal, they all take the oath, and deliver
themselves to Scipio to be kept in custody.
54. During the time in which these things were going on at Canusium,
as many as four thousand foot and horse, who had been dispersed
through the country in the flight, came to Venusia, to the consul.
These the Venusini distributed throughout their families, to be kindly
entertained and taken care of; and also gave to each horseman a gown,
a tunic, and twenty-five denarii; and to each foot soldier ten
denarii, and such arms as they wanted; and every other kind of
hospitality showed them, both publicly and privately: emulously
striving that the people of Venusia might not be surpassed by a woman
of Canusium in kind offices. But the great number of her guests
rendered the burden more oppressive to Busa, for they amounted now to
ten thousand men. Appius and Scipio, having heard that the other
consul was safe, immediately send a messenger to inquire how great a
force of infantry and cavalry he had with him, and at the same time to
ask, whether it was his pleasure that the army should be brought to
Venusia, or remain at Canusium. Varro himself led over his forces to
Canusium. And now there was some appearance of a consular army, and
they seemed able to defend themselves from the enemy by walls, if not
by arms. At Rome intelligence had been received, that not even these
relics of their citizens and allies had survived, but that the two
consuls, with their armies, were cut to pieces, and all their forces
annihilated. Never when the city was in safety was there so great a
panic and confusion within the walls of Rome. I shall therefore shrink
from the task, and not attempt to relate what in describing I must
make less than the reality. The consul and his army having been lost
at the Trasimenus the year before, it was not one wound upon another
which was announced, but a multiplied disaster, the loss of two
consular armies, together with the two consuls: and that now there was
neither any Roman camp, nor general nor soldiery: that Apulia and
Samnium, and now almost the whole of Italy, were in the possession of
Hannibal. No other nation surely would not have been overwhelmed by
such an accumulation of misfortune. Shall I compare with it the
disaster of the Carthaginians, sustained in a naval battle at the
islands Aegates, dispirited by which they gave up Sicily and Sardinia,
and thenceforth submitted to become tributary and stipendiary? Or
shall I compare with it the defeat in Africa under which this same
Hannibal afterwards sunk? In no respect are they comparable, except
that they were endured with less fortitude.
55. Publius Furius Philus and Manius Pomponius, the praetors,
assembled the senate in the curia hostilia, that they might deliberate
about the guarding of the city; for they doubted not but that the
enemy, now their armies were annihilated, would come to assault Rome,
the only operation of the war which remained. Unable to form any plan
in misfortunes, not only very great, but unknown and undefined, and
while the loud lamentations of the women were resounding, and nothing
was as yet made known, the living and the dead alike being lamented in
almost every house; such being the state of things, Quintus Fabius
gave it as his opinion, "That light horsemen should be sent out on the
Latin and Appian ways, who, questioning those they met, as some would
certainly be dispersed in all directions from the flight, might bring
back word what was the fate of the consuls and their armies; and if
the gods, pitying the empire, had left any remnant of the Roman name
where these forces were; whither Hannibal had repaired after the
battle, what he was meditating; what he was doing, or about to do.
That these points should be searched out and ascertained by active
youths. That it should be the business of the fathers, since there was
a deficiency of magistrates, to do away with the tumult and
trepidation in the city; to keep the women from coming into public,
and compel each to abide within her own threshold; to put a stop to
the lamentations of families; to obtain silence in the city; to take
care that the bearers of every kind of intelligence should be brought
before the praetors; that each person should await at home the bearer
of tidings respecting his own fortune: moreover, that they should post
guards at the gates, to prevent any person from quitting the city; and
oblige men to place their sole hopes of safety in the preservation of
the walls and the city. That when the tumult had subsided the fathers
should be called again to the senate-house, and deliberate on the
defence of the city."
56. When all had signified their approbation of this opinion, and
after the crowd had been removed by the magistrates from the forum,
and the senators had proceeded in different directions to allay the
tumult; then at length a letter is brought from the consul Terentius,
stating, "That Lucius Aemilius, the consul, and his army were slain;
that he himself was at Canusium, collecting, as it were after a
shipwreck, the remains of this great disaster; that he had nearly ten
thousand irregular and unorganized troops. That the Carthaginian was
sitting still at Cannae, bargaining about the price of the captives
and the other booty, neither with the spirit of a conqueror nor in the
style of a great general." Then also the losses of private families
were made known throughout the several houses; and so completely was
the whole city filled with grief, that the anniversary sacred rite of
Ceres was intermitted, because it was neither allowable to perform it
while in mourning, nor was there at that juncture a single matron who
was not in mourning. Accordingly, lest the same cause should occasion
the neglect of other public and private sacred rites, the mourning was
limited to thirty days, by a decree of the senate. Now when the tumult
in the city was allayed, an additional letter was brought from Sicily,
from Titus Otacilius, the propraetor, stating, "that the kingdom of
Hiero was being devastated by the Carthaginian fleet: and that, being
desirous of affording him the assistance he implored, he received
intelligence that another Carthaginian fleet was stationed at the
Aegates, equipped and prepared; in order that when the Carthaginians
had perceived that he was gone away to protect the coast of Syracuse,
they might immediately attack Lilybaeum and other parts of the Roman
province; that he therefore needed a fleet, if they wished him to
protect the king their ally, and Sicily."
57. The letters of the consul and the propraetor having been read,
they resolved that Marcus Claudius, who commanded the fleet stationed
at Ostia, should be sent to the army to Canusium; and a letter be
written to the consul, to the effect that, having delivered the army
to the praetor, he should return to Rome the first moment he could,
consistently with the interest of the republic. They were terrified
also, in addition to these disasters, both with other prodigies, and
also because two vestal virgins, Opimia and Floronia, were that year
convicted of incontinence; one of whom was, according to custom,
buried alive at the Colline gate; the other destroyed herself. Lucius
Cantilius, secretary of the pontiff, whom they now call the lesser
pontiffs, who had debauched Floronia, was beaten by rods in the
comitium, by order of the chief pontiff, so that he expired under the
stripes. This impiety being converted into a prodigy, as is usually
the case when happening in the midst of so many calamities, the
decemviri were desired to consult the sacred books. Quintus Fabius
Pictor was also sent to Delphi, to inquire of the oracle by what
prayers and offerings they might appease the gods, and what
termination there would be to such great distresses. Meanwhile certain
extraordinary sacrifices were performed, according to the directions
of the books of the fates; among which a Gallic man and woman, and a
Greek man and woman, were let down alive in the cattle market, into a
place fenced round with stone, which had been already polluted with
human victims, a rite by no means Roman. The gods being, as they
supposed, sufficiently appeased, Marcus Claudius Marcellus sends from
Ostia to Rome, as a garrison for the city, one thousand five hundred
soldiers, which he had with him, levied for the fleet. He himself
sending before him a marine legion, (it was the third legion,) under
the command of the military tribunes, to Teanum Sidicinum, and
delivering the fleet to Publius Furius Philus, his colleague, after a
few days, proceeded by long marches to Cannsium. Marcus Junius,
created dictator on the authority of the senate, and Titus Sempronius,
master of the horse, proclaiming a levy, enrol the younger men from
the age of seventeen, and some who wore the toga praetexta: of these,
four legions and a thousand horse were formed. They send also to the
allies and the Latin confederacy, to receive the soldiers according to
the terms of the treaty. They order that arms, weapons, and other
things should be prepared; and they take down from the temples and
porticoes the old spoils taken from the enemy. They adopted also
another and a new form of levy, from the scarcity of free persons, and
from necessity: they armed eight thousand stout youths from the
slaves, purchased at the public expense, first inquiring of each
whether he was willing to serve. They preferred this description of
troops, though they had the power of redeeming the captives at a less
expense.
58. For Hannibal, after so great a victory at Cannae, being occupied
with the cares of a conqueror, rather than one who had a war to
prosecute, the captives having been brought forward and separated,
addressed the allies in terms of kindness, as he had done before at
the Trebia and the lake Trasimenus, and dismissed them without a
ransom; then he addressed the Romans too, who were called to him, in
very gentle terms: "That he was not carrying on a war of extermination
with the Romans, but was contending for honour and empire. That his
ancestors had yielded to the Roman valour; and that he was
endeavouring that others might be obliged to yield, in their turn, to
his good fortune and valour together. Accordingly, he allowed the
captives the liberty of ransoming themselves, and that the price per
head should be five hundred denarii for a horseman, three hundred for
a foot soldier, and one hundred for a slave." Although some addition
was made to that sum for the cavalry, which they stipulated for
themselves when they surrendered, yet they joyfully accepted any terms
of entering into the compact. They determined that ten persons should
be selected, by their own votes, who might go to Rome to the senate;
nor was any other guarantee of their fidelity taken than that they
should swear that they would return. With these was sent Carthalo, a
noble Carthaginian, who might propose terms, if perchance their minds
were inclined towards peace. When they had gone out of the camp, one
of their body, a man who had very little of the Roman character, under
pretence of having forgotten something, returned to the camp, for the
purpose of freeing himself from the obligation of his oath, and
overtook his companions before night. When it was announced that they
had arrived at Rome, a lictor was despatched to meet Carthalo, to tell
him, in the words of the dictator, to depart from the Roman
territories before night.
59. An audience of the senate was granted by the dictator to the
delegates of the prisoners. The chief of them, Marcus Junius, thus
spoke: "There is not one of us, conscript fathers, who is not aware
that there never was a nation which held prisoners in greater contempt
than our own. But unless our own cause is dearer to us than it should
be, never did men fall into the hands of the enemy who less deserved
to be disregarded than we do; for we did not surrender our arms in the
battle through fear; but having prolonged the battle almost till
night-fall, while standing upon heaps of our slaughtered countrymen,
we betook ourselves to our camp. For the remainder of the day and
during the following night, although exhausted with exertion and
wounds, we protected our rampart. On the following day, when, beset by
the enemy, we were deprived of water, and there was no hope of
breaking through the dense bands of the enemy; and, moreover, not
considering it an impiety that any Roman soldier should survive the
battle of Cannae, after fifty thousand of our army had been butchered;
then at length we agreed upon terms on which we might be ransomed and
let off; and our arms, in which there was no longer any protection, we
delivered to the enemy. We had been informed that our ancestors also
had redeemed themselves from the Gauls with gold, and that though so
rigid as to the terms of peace, had sent ambassadors to Tarentum for
the purpose of ransoming the captives. And yet both the fight at the
Allia with the Gauls, and at Heraclea with Pyrrhus, was disgraceful,
not so much on account of the loss as the panic and flight. Heaps of
Roman carcasses cover the plains of Cannae; nor would any of us have
survived the battle, had not the enemy wanted the strength and the
sword to slay us. There are, too, some of us, who did not even retreat
in the field; but being left to guard the camp, came into the hands of
the enemy when it was surrendered. For my part, I envy not the good
fortune or condition of any citizen or fellow-soldier, nor would I
endeavour to raise myself by depressing another: but not even those
men who, for the most part, leaving their arms, fled from the field,
and stopped not till they arrived at Venusia or Canusium; not even
those men, unless some reward is due to them on account of their
swiftness of foot and running, would justly set themselves before us,
or boast that there is more protection to the state in them than in
us. But you will both find them to be good and brave soldiers, and us
still more zealous, because, by your kindness, we have been ransomed
and restored to our country. You are levying from every age and
condition: I hear that eight thousand slaves are being armed. We are
no fewer in number; nor will the expense of redeeming us be greater
than that of purchasing these. Should I compare ourselves with them, I
should injure the name of Roman. I should think also, conscript
fathers, that in deliberating on such a measure, it ought also to be
considered, (if you are disposed to be over severe, which you cannot
do from any demerit of ours,) to what sort of enemy you would abandon
us. Is it to Pyrrhus, for instance, who treated us, when his
prisoners, like guests; or to a barbarian and Carthaginian, of whom it
is difficult to determine whether his rapacity or cruelty be the
greater? If you were to see the chains, the squalid appearance, the
loathsomeness of your countrymen, that spectacle would not, I am
confident, less affect you, than if, on the other hand, you beheld
your legions prostrate on the plains of Cannae. You may behold the
solicitude and the tears of our kinsmen, as they stand in the lobby of
your senate-house, and await your answer. When they are in so much
suspense and anxiety in behalf of us, and those who are absent, what
think you must be our own feelings, whose lives and liberty are at
stake? By Hercules! should Hannibal himself, contrary to his nature,
be disposed to be lenient towards us, yet we should not consider our
lives worth possessing, since we have seemed unworthy of being
ransomed by you. Formerly, prisoners dismissed by Pyrrhus, without
ransom, returned to Rome; but they returned in company with
ambassadors, the chief men of the state, who were sent to ransom them.
Would I return to my country, a citizen, and not considered worth
three hundred denarii? Every man has his own way of thinking,
conscript fathers. I know that my life and person are at stake. But
the danger which threatens my reputation affects me most, if we should
go away rejected and condemned by you; for men will never suppose that
you grudged the price of our redemption."