22.59
The
Dictator admitted the prisoners' delegates to an audience of the senate. Their
leader, M. Junius, spoke as follows: "Senators: we are every one of us aware
that no State has held its prisoners of war of less account than our own, but,
unless we think our case a better one than we have any right to do, we
would urge that none have ever fallen into the hands of the enemy who were
more deserving of consideration than we are. For we did not give up our
arms during the battle from sheer cowardice; standing on the heaps of the
slain we kept up the struggle till close on night, and only then did we retire
into camp; for the remainder of the day and all through the night we
defended our entrenchments; the following day we were surrounded by the
victorious army and cut off from the water, and there was no hope whatever
now of our forcing our way through the dense masses of the enemy. We did
not think it a crime for some of Rome's soldiers to survive the battle of
Cannae, seeing that 50,000 men had been butchered there, and therefore in
the very last resort we consented to have a price fixed for our ransom and
surrendered to the enemy those arms which were no longer of the slightest
use to us. Besides, we had heard that our ancestors had ransomed
themselves from the Gauls with gold, and that your fathers, sternly as they
set themselves against all conditions of peace, did nevertheless send
delegates to Tarentum to arrange the ransom of the prisoners. But neither
the battle at the Alia against the Gauls nor that at Heraclea against Pyrrhus
was disgraced by the actual losses sustained so much as by the panic and
flight which marked them. The plains of Cannae are covered by heaps of
Roman dead, and we should not be here now if the enemy had not lacked
arms and strength to slay us. There are some amongst us who were never in
the battle at all, but were left to guard the camp, and when it was
surrendered they fell into the hands of the enemy. I do not envy the fortune
or the circumstances of any man, whether he be a fellow-citizen or a
fellow-soldier, nor would I wish it to be said that I had glorified myself by
depreciating others, but this I will say, not even those who fled from the
battle, mostly without arms, and did not stay their flight till they had reached
Venusia or Canusium, can claim precedence over us or boast that they are
more of a defence to the State than we are. But you will find both in them
and in us good and gallant soldiers, only we shall be still more eager to serve
our country because it will be through your kindness that we shall have been
ransomed and restored to our fatherland. You have enlisted men of all ages
and of every condition; I hear that eight thousand slaves are armed. Our
number is no less, and it will not cost more to ransom us than it did to
purchase them, but if I were to compare ourselves as soldiers with them, I
should be offering an insult to the name of Roman. I should think, senators,
that in deciding upon a matter like this, you should also take into
consideration, if you are disposed to be too severe, to what sort of an enemy
you are going to abandon us. Is it to a Pyrrhus, who treated his prisoners as
though they were his guests? Is it not rather to a barbarian, and what is
worse, a Carthaginian, of whom it is difficult to judge whether he is more
rapacious or more cruel? Could you see the chains, the squalor, the
disgusting appearance of your fellow-citizens, the sight would, I am sure,
move you no less than if, on the other hand, you beheld your legions lying
scattered over the plains of Cannae. You can behold the anxiety and the
tears of our kinsmen as they stand in the vestibule of your House and await
your reply. If they are in such anxiety and suspense about us and about those
who are not here, what, think you, must be the feelings of the men
themselves whose life and liberty are at stake? Why, good heavens! even if
Hannibal, contrary to his nature, chose to be kind to us, we should still think
life not worth living after you had decided that we did not deserve to be
ransomed. Years ago the prisoners who were released by Pyrrhus without
ransom returned to Rome, but they returned in company with the foremost
men of the State who had been sent to effect their ransom. Am I to return to
my native country as a citizen not thought worth three hundred coins ? Each
of us has his own feelings, senators. I know that my life and person are at
stake, but I dread more the peril to my good name, in case we depart
condemned and repulsed by you; for men will never believe that you grudged
the cost."
