9.5
The consuls
left to confer with Pontius. When the victor began to insist upon a treaty,
they told him that a treaty could not possibly be made without the orders of
the people nor without the fetials and the usual ceremonial. So that the
convention of Claudium did not, as is commonly believed and as even
Claudius asserts, take the form of a regular treaty. It was concluded through
a sponsio, i.e. by the officers giving their word of honour to observe the
conditions. For what need would there have been in the case of a treaty for
any pledge from the officers or for any hostages, since in concluding a treaty
the imprecation is always used: "By whosesoever default it may come about
that the said conditions are not observed, may Jupiter so smite that people as
this swine is now struck by the fetials." The consuls, the staff-officers, the
quaestors, and the military tribunes all gave their word on oath, and all their
names are extant today, whereas if a regular treaty had been concluded no
names but those of the two fetials would have survived. Owing to the
inevitable delay in arranging a treaty, 600 equites were demanded as
hostages to answer with their lives if the terms of the capitulation were not
observed. 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 renewed 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.
