Ab urbe condita

This is the character of the spot; there are two passes, deep, narrow, with wooded hills on each side, and a continuous chain of mountains extends from one to the other. Between them lies a watered grassy plain through the middle of which the road goes.

Before you reach the plain you have to pass through the first defile and either return by the same path by which you entered or, if you go on, you must make your way out by a still narrower and more difficult pass at the other end. The Roman column descended into this plain from the first defile with its overhanging cliffs, and marched straight through to the other pass.

They found it blocked by a huge barricade of felled trees with great masses of rock piled against them. No sooner did they become aware of the enemy's stratagem than his outposts showed themselves on the heights above the pass.

A hasty retreat was made, and they proceeded to retrace their steps by the way they had come when they discovered that this pass also had its own barricade and armed men on the heights above. Then without any order being given they called a halt. Their senses were dazed and stupefied and a strange numbness seized their limbs.

Each gazed at his neighbour, thinking him more in possession of his senses and judgment than himself. For a long time they stood silent and motionless, then they saw the consuls' tents being set up and some of the men getting their entrenching tools ready.

Though they knew that in their desperate and hopeless plight it would he ridiculous for them to fortify the ground on which

they stood still, not to make matters worse by any fault of their own they set to work without waiting for orders and entrenched their camp with its rampart close to the water.

While they were thus engaged the enemy showered taunts and insults upon them, and they themselves in bitter mockery jeered at their own fruitless labour.

The consuls were too much depressed and unnerved even to summon a council of war, for there was no place for either counsel or help, but the staff-officers and tribunes gathered round them, and the men with their faces turned towards their tents sought from their leaders a succour which the gods themselves could hardly render them.

Night surprised them while they were lamenting over their situation rather than consulting how to meet it The different temperaments of the men came out; some exclaimed: “Let us break through the barricades, scale the mountain slopes, force our way through the forest, try every way where we can carry arms.

Only let us get at the enemy whom we have beaten for now nearly thirty years; all places will he smooth and easy to a Roman fighting against the perfidious Samnite.”

Others answered: “Where are we to go? How are we to get there? Are we preparing to move the mountains from their seat? How will you get at the enemy as long as these peaks hang over us? Armed and unarmed, brave and cowardly we are all alike trapped and conquered. The enemy will not even offer us the chance of an honourable death by the sword, he will finish the war without moving from his seat.”

Indifferent to food, unable to sleep, they talked in this way throughout he night. Even the Samnites were unable to make up their minds what to do under such fortunate circumstances. It was unanimously agreed to write to Herennius, the captain-general's father, and ask his advice.

He was now advanced in years and had given up all public business, civil as well as military, but though his physical powers were failing his intellect was as sound and clear as ever.

He had already heard that the Roman armies were hemmed in between the two passes at the Caudine Forks, and when his son's courier asked for his advice he gave it as his opinion that the whole force ought to he at once allowed to depart uninjured.

This advice was rejected and the courier was sent back to consult him again.

He now advised that they should every one he put to death. On receiving these replies, contradicting each other like the ambiguous utterances of an oracle, his son's first impression was that his father's mental powers had become impaired through his physical weakness. However, he yielded to the unanimous wish and invited his father to the council of war.

The old man, we are told, at once complied and was conveyed in a wagon to the camp. After taking his seat in the council, it became clear from what he said that he had not changed his mind, but he explained his reasons for the advice he gave.

He believed that by taking the course he first proposed, which he considered the best, he was establishing a durable peace and friendship with a most powerful people in treating them with such exceptional kindness; by adopting the second he was postponing war for many generations, for it would take that time for Rome to recover her strength painfully and slowly after the loss of two armies.