9.8
They
entered upon the active duties of their office on the very day of their
election, for so had the senate decreed, and after disposing of the business
connected with their accession to office, they proceeded at once to introduce
the subject of the capitulation of Caudium. Publilius, who was the presiding
consul, called upon Spurius Postumius to speak. He rose in his place with
just the same expression that he had worn when passing under the yoke, and
began: "Consuls, I am quite aware that I have been called upon to speak
first, not because I am foremost in honour, but because I am foremost in
disgrace and hold the position not of a senator but of a man on his trial who
has to meet the charge not only of an unsuccessful war but also of an
ignominious peace. Since, however, you have not introduced the question of
our guilt or punishment, I shall not enter upon a defence which in the
presence of men not unacquainted with the mutability of human fortunes
would not be a very difficult one to undertake. I will state in a few words
what I think about the question before us, and you will be able to judge from
what I say whether it was myself or your legions that I spared when I
pledged myself to the convention, however shameful or however necessary it
was. This convention, however, was not made by the order of the Roman
people, and therefore the Roman people are not bound by it, nor is anything
due to the Samnites under its terms beyond our own persons. Let us be
surrendered by the fetials, stripped and bound; let us release the people from
their religious obligations if we have involved them in any, so that without
infringing any law human or divine we may resume a war which will be
justified by the law of nations and sanctioned by the gods. I advise, that in
the meantime the consuls enrol and equip an army and lead it forth to war,
but that they do not cross the hostile frontier until all our obligations under
the terms of surrender have been discharged. And you, immortal gods, I pray
and beseech, that as it was not your will that the consuls Sp. Postumius and
T. Veturius should wage a successful war against the Samnites, you may at
least deem it enough to have witnessed us sent under the yoke and
compelled to submit to a shameful convention, enough to witness us
surrendered, naked and in chains, to the enemy, taking upon our heads the
whole weight of his anger and vengeance! May it be in accordance with your
will that the legions of Rome under fresh consuls should wage war against
the Samnites in the same way in which all wars were waged before we were
consuls!" When he finished speaking, such admiration and pity were felt for
him that they could hardly think that it was the same Sp. Postumius who had
concluded such a disgraceful peace. They viewed with the utmost sadness
the prospect of such a man suffering at the hands of the enemy such terrible
punishment as he was sure to meet with, enraged as they would be at the
rupture of the peace. The whole House expressed in terms of the highest
praise their approval of his proposal. They were beginning to vote on the
question when two of the tribunes of the plebs, L. Livius and Q. Maelius,
entered a protest which they afterwards withdrew. They argued that the
people as a whole would not be discharged from their religious obligation by
this surrender unless the Samnites were placed in the same position of
advantage which they held at Caudium. Further, they said they did not
deserve any punishment for having saved the Roman army by undertaking to
procure peace, and they urged as a final reason that as they, the tribunes,
were sacrosanct and their persons inviolable they could not be surrendered
to the enemy or exposed to any violence.