9.7
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 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.
They did not enter the City like men returning in safety after being given up
for lost, but in the guise and with the expression of prisoners. They came late
in the evening and crept to their homes, where they kept themselves so dose
that for some days not one of them would show himself in public or in the
Forum. The consuls shut themselves up in privacy and refused to discharge
any official functions with the exception of one which was wrung from them
by a decree of the senate, namely, the nomination of a Dictator to conduct
the elections. They nominated Q. Fabius Ambustus, with P. Aelius Paetus as
Master of the Horse. Their appointment was found to be irregular, and they
were replaced by M. Aemilius Papus as Dictator and L. Valerius Flaccus as
Master of the Horse. Even they, however, were not allowed to conduct the
elections; the people were dissatisfied with all the magistrates of that year,
and so matters reverted to an interregnum. Q. Fabius Maximus and M.
Valerius Corvus were successively interreges, and the latter held the
consular elections. Q. Publilius Philo and L. Papirius Cursor -the latter for
the second time -were returned. The choice was universally approved, for
all knew there were no more brilliant generals at that day.