24.14
During
this time the consul, Q. Fabius, made an attempt on Casilinum, which was
held by a Carthaginian garrison, while, as though they were acting in
concert, Hanno, marching from Bruttium with a strong body of horse and
foot, reached Beneventum on the one side and Ti. Gracchus, from Luceria,
approached it in the opposite direction. He got into the town first, and
hearing that Hanno had encamped by the river Caloris about three miles from
the city and was ravaging the country, he moved out of the place and fixed
his camp about a mile from the enemy. Here he harangued his troops. His
legions were composed mostly of volunteer slaves who had made up their
minds to earn their liberty, without murmuring, by another year's service
rather than demand it openly. He had, however, on leaving his winter
quarters noticed that there were discontented "rumblings going on in the
army, men were asking whether they would ever serve as free men. In
consequence of this he had sent a despatch to the senate in which he stated
that the question was not so much what they wanted as what they deserved;
they had rendered him good and gallant service up to that day, and they only
fell short of the standard of regular soldiers in the matter of personal
freedom. On that point permission had been granted to him to do what he
thought best in the interests of the State. So before closing with the enemy
he announced that the hour which they had so long hoped for, when they
would gain their freedom, had now come. The next day he was going to
fight a pitched battle in a free and open plain where there would be full scope
for true courage without any fear of ambuscade. Whoever brought back the
head of an enemy would be at once by his orders declared to be a free man;
whoever quitted his place in the ranks he would punish with a slave's death.
Every man's fortune was in his own hands. It was not he alone that
guaranteed their liberty, but the consul Marcellus also and the whole of the
senate whom he had consulted and who had left the question of their liberty
to him. He then read the despatch from Marcellus and the resolution passed
in the senate. These were greeted with a loud and ringing cheer. They
demanded to be led at once to battle and pressed him forthwith to give the
signal. Gracchus announced that the battle would take place the next day and
then dismissed the men to quarters. The soldiers were in high spirits, those
especially who had the prospect of earning their freedom by one day's
strenuous work, and they spent the rest of the day in getting their arms and
armour ready.
