One name, especially, was generally denounced, that of Brutulus Papius. He was an aristocrat and possessed great influence, and there was not a shadow of doubt that it was he who had brought about the breach of the recent truce.
The praetors found themselves compelled to submit a decree which the council passed, ordering Brutulus Papius to be surrendered and all the prisoners and booty taken from the Romans to be sent with him to Rome, and further that the redress which the fetials had demanded in accordance with treaty-rights should be made as law and justice demanded.
Brutulus escaped the ignominy and punishment which awaited him by a voluntary death, but the decree was carried out; the fetials were sent to Rome with the dead body, and all his property was surrendered with him.
None of this, however, was accepted by the Romans beyond the prisoners and whatever articles amongst the spoil were identified by the owners; so far as anything else was concerned, the surrender was fruitless. The senate decreed a triumph for the Dictator.
Some authorities state that this war was managed by the consuls and it was they who celebrated the triumph over the Samnites, and further that Fabius invaded Apulia and brought away great quantities of spoil.
There is no discrepancy as to A. Cornelius having been Dictator that year, the only doubt is whether he was appointed to conduct the war, or whether, owing to the serious illness of L. Plautius, the praetor, he was appointed to give the signal for starting the chariot races, and after discharging this not very noteworthy function resigned office.
It is difficult to decide which account or which authority to prefer.
I believe that the true history has been falsified by funeral orations and lying inscriptions on the family busts, since each family appropriates to itself an imaginary record of noble deeds and official distinctions. It is at all events owing to this cause that so much confusion has been introduced into the records of private careers and public events.
There is no writer of those times now extant who was contemporary with the events he relates and whose authority, therefore, can he depended upon.
The
T. Veturius Calvinus and Spurius Postumius were the consuls. The Samnites had for their captain-general that year C. Pontius, the son of Herennius, the ablest statesman they possessed, whilst the son
was their foremost soldier and commander. When the envoys who had been sent with the terms of surrender returned from their fruitless mission, Pontius made the following speech in the Samnite council: “Do not suppose that this mission has been barren of results.
We have gained this much by it, whatever measure of divine wrath we may have incurred by our violation of treaty obligations has now been atoned for. I am perfectly certain that all those deities whose will it was that we should he reduced to the necessity of making the restitution which was demanded under the terms of the treaty, have viewed with displeasure the haughty contempt with which the Romans have treated our concessions.
What more could we have done to placate the wrath of heaven or soften the resentment of men than we have done?
The property of the enemy, which we considered ours by the rights of war, we have restored; the author of the war, whom we could not surrender alive, we gave up after he had paid his debt to nature, and lest any taint of guilt should remain with us we carried his possessions to Rome.
What more, Romans, do I owe to you or to the treaty or to the gods who were invoked as witnesses to the treaty? What arbitrator am I to bring forward to decide how far your wrath, how far my punishment is to go?