be determined, whether his avarice or cruelty be greater. If you were to behold the chains, the squalid dress, and the miserable looks of your countrymen, the sight I am convinced would affect you not less deeply than if you saw your legions prostrate on the plains of Cannæ. You can here observe the solitude and the tears of our relations, who stand in the porch of your senate-house, waiting for your determination: when they suffer such suspense and anxiety for us, and for those who are absent, what do you suppose must be the state of those men's minds whose liberty and life are at stake? Believe me, that even should Hannibal, contrary to his nature, behave with lenity towards us, yet life would be no gratification, after having been adjudged by you unworthy of being ransomed. Formerly, prisoners dismissed by Pyrrhus without ransom returned home to Rome; but they returned with ambassadors, the principal men in the state, who had been sent for the purpose of ransoming them. Should I return to my country, whom my fellow-citizens have not valued, as worth three hundred denarii; conscript fathers, every man has his own way of thinking. I know that my person and life are in hazard; but I am more deeply affected by the danger to our reputation, lest we should appear to be rejected and condemned by you: for the world will never believe that you were actuated by the motive of saving money.'

60. When he ceased speaking, the multitude who stood in the comitium instantly raised a lamentable cry; and stretching their hands towards the senatehouse, besought the members to restore to them their children, their brethren, and relations. Their fears, and the urgency of the case, had brought a number of women also among the crowd of men in the forum. The senate, as soon as the house was cleared, took the matter into consideration. Opinions were different: some recommended that the prisoners should be ransomed at the expense of the public; others, that the public money should not be expended, but that they

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should not be hindered from ransoming themselves with their own private property; and that, to such as wanted money at present, it should be lent out of the treasury, on their indemnifying the nation by sureties and mortgages. Titus Manlius Torquatus, a man who carried primitive strictness, as many thought, to too great a degree of rigor, on being asked his opinion, spoke to this effect: Had the demands of the deputies in favor of those who are in the hands of the enemy gone no farther than to their being ransomed, I should, without offering censure on any of them, have delivered my judgment in few words; for what else would be requisite than to admonish you to maintain the practice transmitted from your forefathers, and to adhere to a precedent essential to military discipline? But now, since they have in a manner made a merit of having surrendered themselves to the foe, and claimed a preference not only over those who were made prisoners in the field, but even over those who made their way to Venusia and Canusium, and over the consul Caius Terentius himself, I will not let you remain ignorant, conscript fathers, of any of the circumstances which occurred on the occasion. And I wish that the representations which I am going to lay before you were made in the presence of the troops themselves at Canusium, the most competent witnesses of every man's cowardice and bravery; or, at least, that one particular person were present here, Publius Sempronius, the counsel and example of which officer, had those soldiers thought proper to follow, they would to-day be Romans in their own camp, not prisoners in that of the enemy. But as the Carthaginians were fatigued with fighting, or totally occupied in rejoicing for their success, in which state indeed most of them had even retired into their camp, they had it in their power during the whole night to extricate themselves by sallying forth; and though seven thousand soldiers had been able to force their way, even through close battalions, yet they neither of themselves offered to attempt the same, nor were willing to follow the lead of another. Publius Sempronius Tuditanus never ceased advising

and exhorting them, that while the numbers of the enemy round the camp were few, while quiet and silence prevailed, while the night covered their design, they would follow where he should lead; assuring them that, before daylight, they might arrive in places of safety in the cities of their allies. If he had said, in like manner, as in the time of our grandfathers Publius Decius, military tribune in Samnium, spoke, or, as in our own time, and in the former Punic war, Calpurnius Flamma said to the three hundred volunteers, when he was leading them to seize on an eminence situated in the midst of the enemy, 'Soldiers, let us die, and by our deaths extricate the surrounding legions from the ambuscade.' If Publius Sempronius had spoken thus, I say, he could not surely deem you either Romans or men, if no one appeared ready to accompany him in so brave an enterprise. But still he points out the way which leads not to glory only but to safety. He shows how you may return to your country, your parents, wives, and children. Do you want spirit for your own preservation? What would you do if the cause of your country required your death? Fifty thousand of your countrymen and allies lie around you slain on that same day. If so many examples of bravery do not rouse you, nothing will ever rouse you: if such a carnage has not inspired contempt of life, no other will. While in freedom and safety, wish for your country: do this as long as it is your country. It is now too late for you to wish for it, when you are divested of its privileges, disfranchised of the rights of citizens, and become slaves of the Carthaginians. Will you return, on terms of purchase, to that condition which you relinquished through pusillanimity and cowardice? To Publius Sempronius, your countryman, ordering you to take arms and follow him, you would not listen; you listened soon after to Hannibal, ordering you to betray your camp to him and surrender your arms. Why do I charge them with cowardice when I may charge them with actions highly criminal? for they not only refused to follow

the person who gave them the best advice, but attempted to hinder and to stop him, had not his gallant companions, with their drawn swords, cleared the way of those dastards. I affirm that Publius Sempronius was obliged to force his passage through a body of his countrymen before he broke through that of the enemy. Has our country any reason to wish for such citizens as these; to whom, if the rest had been like, we should not have had this day one citizen of those who fought at Cannæ? Out of seven thousand men, six hundred were found who had spirit to force their way, who returned home with freedom and their arms, forty thousand of the enemy not being able to stop them. How safely then do you suppose might a band of near two legions have passed? In that case, conscript fathers, you would have had this day at Canusium twenty thousand soldiers, brave and faithful. But how can these men be good and faithful citizens, (for to bravery they do not themselves lay claim,) after having attempted to stop the sally of those that wished to trust all to their swords? Or who can suppose that they do not look with envy on the safety and glory which the others have acquired by their valor, while they see themselves reduced by their fear and cowardice to ignominious slavery? The intire band chose to remain in their tents, and wait the approach of day and of the enemy at the same time; though, during the silence of the night, they had a fair opportunity of effecting their escape. But though they wanted confidence to sally out of the camp, they had courage valiantly to defend it. Being besieged for several days and nights, they protected their rampart by arms: at length, after the utmost efforts and sufferings, when every support of life failed, when their strength was wasted through hunger, and they could no longer bear up under their arms, they were overcome by necessities too powerful for human nature to sustain, and a part, with Sempronius, gained the greater camp. Now, at sun-rise, the enemy approached the rampart, and before the second hour these men, who had refused to accompany him

without trying the issue of any dispute, surrendered their arms and themselves. Here then is the amount of their martial performances during two days: when they ought to have stood in their posts in the battle, and fought, they then fled to their camp; which, instead of defending, they surrendered, showing them selves equally useless there and in the field. Shall I then ransom such as you? When you ought to sally forth from your camp you hesitate and stay there; and when staying, there is a necessity for defending it, you make surrender of your arms and yourselves. Conscript fathers, I would no more vote for ransoming those men than I would for delivering up to Hannibal the others, who forced their way out of the camp, through the midst of the enemy, and by the highest exertions of valor restored themselves to their country.'

61. After this discourse of Manlius, notwithstanding that most of the senators had relations among the prisoners, yet, besides the maxim generally observed by the state, which from the earliest times had ever showed very little tenderness towards such, the consideration of the money requisite for the ransom operated with them as a powerful argument; indeed they were unwilling either that the treasury should be exhausted, from which a great sum had already been issued for purchasing and arming the slaves for service, or that Hannibal should receive so considerable a supply, and of which he was said to stand in the greatest need. A harsh answer then being given, that the prisoners should not be ransomed, and this new cause of grief, in the loss of so many citizens, being added to the former, the people escorted the deputies to the gate with abundance of tears and lamentations. One of the deputies left the rest, and went home, as if he had fulfilled his oath by fallaciously returning into the camp. But as soon as this became known, and was reported to the senate, they unanimously voted that he should be seized and conveyed to Hannibal, under a guard appointed by the government. This affair of the pri