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THE

HISTORY OF ROME.

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, Æquans, 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.

Y.R.433.
B.C.319.

I. THE year following was distinguished by the convention of Caudium, so memorable on account of the misfortune of the Romans. The consuls of the year were Titus Veturius Calvinus, and Spurius Postumius. The Samnites were that year commanded by Caius Pontius, son to Herennius, born of a father most highly re

nowned for wisdom, and himself a consummate warrior and commander. When the ambassadors, who had been sent to offer restitution, returned, without concluding a peace, he said, in an assembly, "that ye may not think that no purpose has been effected by this embassy, be assured, that 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 restitution, it was not agree-. able to them, that our atonement for the breach of treaty 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 to 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 {ods, the guarantees of the treaty? What umpire shall I call in to judge of your resentment, and of my punishment? I decline none; neither nation nor private person. But, if the weak is not to find protection against a stronger in human laws, I will appeal to the gods, the avengers of intolerable arrogance, and will beseech them to turn their wrath against those who are not satisfied by the restoration of their own, nor by additional heaps of other men's property; whose inhuman rage is not satiated by the death. of the guilty, by the surrender of their lifeless bodies, and 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, when it becomes necessary, and arms are clear of im

:

piety, when men have no hope left but in arms. Wherefore, as the issue of every human undertaking depends chiefly on men's acting either with or without the favour of the gods, be assured that the former wars ye waged in opposition to the gods more than to men; in this, which we are now to undertake, ye will act under the immediate guidance of the gods 'themselves."

II. After uttering these predictions, not more favourable 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, besieging Luceria with their whole force, and very near becoming masters of it. Such a rumour had been industriously spread before, and had already reached the Romans; but these prisoners caused them to give it greater credit, especially as they all concurred in the same report. The Romans did not hesitate to resolve on carrying succour to the Lucerians, because they were good and faithful allies; and, for this farther reason, lest all Apulia, through apprehension of the impending danger, might go over to the enemy. The only point which came under 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, abounding in grass

and water, and through the middle of which the passage runs : but before this is arrived at, the first defile must be passed, while the only way back is through the road by which it was entered; or if in case of resolving to proceed forward, it must be by the other glen, which is still more narrow and difficult. Into this plain the Romans marched down their troops, by one of those passes, through the cleft of a rock; and, when they advanced to the other defile, found it blocked up by trees thrown across, with a mound of huge stones. The stratagem of the enemy now became apparent; and at the same time a body of troops was seen on the eminence over the glen. Hastening back, then, to 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 of their limbs: they then remained a long time motionless and silent, with their eyes fixed on each other, as if each thought the other more capable of judging and advising than himself. After some time, the consul's pavilions were erected, and they got ready the implements for throwing up works, although they were sensible that it must appear ridiculous to attempt raising a fortification in their present desperate condition, and when almost every hope was lost. 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 enduring the haughty taunts of their enemies, seemed with melancholy to acknowledge the apparent fruitlessness of their 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.

III. Night came on while they were employed in lamenting their situation, all urging, with warmth, whatever their several tempers prompted. Some crying out, "Let us go over those fences which obstruct 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, how can we proceed? 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, they passed the whole night. could the Samnites, though in circumstances so accordant to their wishes, 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 was informed that the Roman armies were shut up at the Caudine forks, between the two glens, and was asked for advice 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 to advise with him a second time, he recommended that they should all, to a man, be put to death. On receiving these answers, so opposite to each other, like the ambiguous responses of an oracle, his son, although, as well as others, persuaded that the powers

Nor

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