Ab urbe condita

As the men were highly incensed at this interruption to a vengeance which was so delightful, it was necessary to explain to them on the spot why they were prevented from carrying it further.

The consuls assured them that they neither had yielded nor would yield to any man in showing their hatred of the enemy, and as they had been their leaders in the fighting so they would have been foremost in encouraging their insatiable rage and vengeance.

But they had to consider the 6oo equites who were being detained as hostages in Luceria, and to take care that the enemy, despairing of any quarter for themselves, did not wreak their blind rage on their captives, and destroy them before they perished themselves.

The soldiers quite approved and were glad that their indiscriminate fury had been checked; they admitted that they must submit to anything rather than endanger the safety of so many youths belonging to the noblest families in Rome.

The soldiers were dismissed to quarters, and a council of war was held to decide whether they should press on the siege of Luceria with their whole force or whether Publilius with his army should visit the Apulians and ascertain their intentions, about which there was considerable doubt.

The latter was decided upon, and the consul succeeded in reducing a considerable number of their towns in one campaign, whilst others were admitted into alliance.

Papirius, who had remained behind to prosecute the siege of Luceria, soon found his expectations realised, for as all the roads by which supplies could be brought in were blocked, the Samnite garrison in Luceria was so reduced by famine that they sent to the Roman consul an offer to restore the hostages, for whose recovery the war had been undertaken, if he would raise the siege.

He replied that they ought to have consulted Pontius, at whose instigation they had sent the Romans under the yoke, as to what terms he thought ought to he imposed on the vanquished.

As, however, they preferred that equal terms should be fixed by the enemy rather than proposed by themselves, he told the negotiators to take back word to Luceria that all the arms, baggage, and beasts of burden together with the non-combatant population were to be left behind; the soldiers he should send under the yoke and leave them one garment apiece.

In doing this, he said, he was subjecting them to no novel disgrace but simply retaliating upon them one which they had themselves inflicted.

They were compelled to accept these terms and 7000 men were sent under the yoke. An enormous amount of booty was found in Luceria, all the arms and standards which had been taken at Caudium, and what created the greatest joy of all —they recovered the equites, the hostages whom the Samnites had placed there for security.