Ab urbe condita

observed. [*](The officers gave their pledged word to do their utmost to induce the senate and people to conclude a treaty with the Samnites. Their failure involved the fate of hostages.) Then a definite time was fixed for surrendering the hostages and sending the army, deprived of its arms, under the yoke. The return of the consuls with the terms of surrender henewed the grief and distress in the camp. So bitter was the feeling that the men had difficulty in keeping their hands off those “through whose rashness,” they said, “they had been brought into that place and through whose cowardice

they would have to leave it in a more shameful plight than they

had come. They had had no guides who knew the neighbourhood, no scouts had been thrown out, they had fallen blindly like wild animals into a trap.” There they were, looking at each other, gazing sadly at the armour and weapons which were soon to be given up, their right hands which were to be defenceless, their bodies which were to be at the mercy of

their enemies. They pictured to themselves the hostile yoke, the taunts and insulting looks of the victors, their marching disarmed between the armed ranks, and then afterwards the miserable progress of an army in disgrace through the cities of their allies, their return to their country and their parents, whither their ancestors had so often returned in

triumphal procession. They alone, they said, had been defeated without receiving a single wound, or using a single weapon, or fighting a single battle; they had not been allowed to draw the sword or come to grips with the enemy; courage and strength had been given them in vain.

While they were uttering these indignant protests, the hour of their humiliation arrived which was to make everything more bitter for them by actual experience than they had anticipated

or imagined. First of all they were ordered to lay down their arms and go outside the rampart with only one garment each. The first to be dealt with were those surrendered as hostages who were taken away for

safe keeping. Next, the lictors were ordered to retire from the consuls, who were then stripped of

their paludamenta. This aroused such deep commiseration amongst those who a short time ago had been cursing them and saying that they ought to be surrendered and scourged, that every man, forgetting his own plight, turned away his eyes from such an outrage upon the majesty of state as from a spectacle too horrible to behold.

The consuls were the first to be sent, little more than half-clothed, under the yoke, then each in the order of his rank was exposed to the same disgrace, and finally, the legionaries one after another.

Around them stood the enemy fully armed, reviling and jeering at them; swords were pointed at most of them, and when they offended their victors by showing their indignation and resentment too plainly some were wounded and even killed.

[*](The Return of the Roman Army). —Thus were they marched under the yoke. But what was still harder to bear was that after they had emerged from the pass under the eyes of the foe, though, like men dragged up from the jaws of hell, they seemed to behold the light for the first time, the very light itself, serving only to reveal such a hideous sight as they marched along, was more gloomy than any shape of death.

They could have reached Capua before nightfall, but not knowing how their allies would receive them, and kept back by a feeling of shame, they all flung themselves, destitute of everything, on the sides of the road near Capua.

As soon as news of this reached the place, a proper feeling of compassion for their allies got the better of the inborn disdain of the Campanian;

they immediately sent to the consuls their own insignia of office, the fasces and the lictors, and the soldiers they generously supplied with arms, horses, clothes, and provisions.

As they entered Capua the senate and people came out in a body to meet them, showed them all due hospitality, and paid them all the consideration to which as individuals and as members of an allied state they were entitled.