Ab urbe condita

But all the courtesies and kindly looks and cheerful greetings of their allies were powerless to evoke a single word or even to make them lift up their eyes and look in the face the friends who were trying to comfort them.

To such an extent did feelings of shame make their gloom and

despondency all the heavier, and constrain them to shun the converse and society of men.

The next day some young nobles were commissioned to escort them to the frontier. On their return they were summoned to the Senate-house, and in answer to inquiries on the part of the older senators they reported that they seemed to be much more gloomy and depressed than the day before;

the column moved along so silently that they might have been dumb; the Roman mettle was cowed; they had lost their spirit with their arms; they saluted no man, nor did they return any man's salutation; not a single man had the power to open his mouth for fear of what was coming; their necks were bowed as if they were still beneath the yoke.

The Samnites had won not only a glorious victory but a lasting one; they had not only captured Rome as the Gauls had done before them, but, what was a still more warlike exploit, they had captured the Roman courage and hardihood.

While this report was being made and listened to with the greatest attention, and the name and greatness of Rome were being mourned over

as though lost for ever, in the council of her faithful allies, Ofillius Calavius, the son of Ovus, addressed the senators. He was a man of high birth and with a distinguished career and now venerable for his age.

He is reported to have said: “The truth is far otherwise. That stubborn silence, those eyes fixed on the ground, those ears deaf to all consolation, that shame - faced shrinking from the light, are all indications of a terrible resentment fermenting in their hearts which will break out in vengeance.

Either I know nothing of the Roman character or that silence will soon call forth amongst the Samnites cries of distress and groans of anguish.

The memory of the capitulation of Caudium will be much more bitter to the Samnites than to the Romans. Whenever and wherever they meet each side will be animated by its own courage and the Samnites will not find the Caudine Forks everywhere.”

Rome[*](The Reception in Rome.) was now aware of its disaster. The first information they received was that the army was blockaded, then came the more gloomy news of the ignominious capitulation.

Immediately on receiving the first intelligence of the blockade they began to levy troops, but when they heard that the army had surrendered in such a disgraceful way, the preparations for relieving them were abandoned, and without waiting for any formal order the whole City presented the aspect of public mourning.

The booths round the Forum were shut up; all public business in the Forum ceased spontaneously before the proclamation closing it was made; the senators laid aside their purple striped tunics and gold rings; the gloom amongst the citizens was almost greater than that in the army.

Their indignation was not confined to the generals or the officers who had made the convention, even the innocent soldiers were the objects of resentment, they said they would not admit them into the City.

But this angry temper was dispelled by the arrival of the troops; their wretched appearance awoke commiseration amongst the most resentful.