Ab urbe condita

Capua. Here a second battle took place, in which the Campanians were defeated and driven within their walls. They had lost the flower of their army, and as there was no hope of any assistance near, they found themselves compelled to ask for help from Rome.

On[*](The Appeal of the Campanians.) being admitted to an audience, their envoys addressed the senate to the following effect: “Senators! the people of Capua have sent us as ambassadors to you to ask for a friendship which shall be perpetual, and for help for the present hour.

Had we sought this friendship in the day of our prosperity it might have been cemented more readily, but at the same time by a weaker bond. For in that case, remembering that we had formed our friendship on equal terms, we should perhaps have been as close friends as now, but we should have been less prepared to accept your mandates, less at your mercy.

Whereas now, won over by your compassion and defended in our extremity by your aid, we should be bound to cherish the kindness bestowed on us if we are not to appear ungrateful and undeserving of any help from either gods or man.

I certainly do not consider that the fact of the Samnites having already become your friends and allies should be a bar to our being admitted into your friendship; it only shows that they take precedence of us in the priority and degree of the honour which you have conferred upon them. There is nothing in your treaty with them to prevent you from making fresh treaties.

It has always been held amongst you to be a satisfactory reason for friendship, when he who made advances to you was anxious to be your friend.

Although our present circumstances forbid us to speak proudly about ourselves, still we Campanians are second to no people, save yourselves, in the size of our city and the fertility of our soil, and we shall bring, I consider, no small accession to your prosperity by entering into your friendship.

Whenever the Aequi and Volscians, the perpetual enemies of this City, make any hostile movement we shall be on their rear, and what you lead the way in doing on behalf of our safety, that we shall always continue to do on behalf of your dominion and your glory.

When these nations which lie between us are subjugated —and your courage and fortune are a guarantee that this will soon come about — you will have an unbroken dominion up to our frontier.

Painful and humiliating is the confession which our fortunes compel us to make; but it has come to this, senators, we Campanians must be numbered either amongst your friends or your enemies. If you defend us we are yours, if you abandon us we shall belong to the Samnites.

Make up your minds, then, whether you would prefer that Capua and the whole of Campania should form an addition to your strength or

should augment the power of the Samnites It is only right, Romans, that your sympathy and help should be extended to all, but especially should it be so to those who, when others appealed to them, tried to help them beyond their strength and so have brought themselves into these dire straits.