22.56
This
proposal was unanimously carried without any discussion. After the crowd
was cleared out of the Forum by the magistrates and the senators had gone
in various directions to allay the agitation, a despatch at last arrived from C.
Terentius Varro. He wrote that L. Aemilius was killed and his army cut to
pieces; he himself was at Canusium collecting the wreckage that remained
from this awful disaster; there were as many as 10,000 soldiers, irregular,
unorganised; the Carthaginian was still at Cannae, bargaining about the
prisoners' ransom and the rest of the plunder in a spirit very unlike that of a
great and victorious general. The next thing was the publication of the names
of those killed, and the City was thrown into such universal mourning that
the annual celebration of the festival of Ceres was suspended, because it is
forbidden to those in mourning to take part in it, and there was not a single
matron who was not a mourner during those days. In order that the same
cause might not prevent other sacred observances from being duly honoured,
the period of mourning was limited by a senatorial decree to thirty days.
When the agitation was quieted and the senate resumed its session, a fresh
despatch was received, this time from Sicily. T. Otacilius, the propraetor,
announced that Hiero's kingdom was being devastated by a Carthaginian
fleet, and when he was preparing to render him the assistance he asked for,
he received news that another fully equipped fleet was riding at anchor off
the Aegates, and when they heard that he was occupied with the defence of
the Syracusan shore they would at once attack Lilybaeum and the rest of the
Roman province. If, therefore, the senate wished to retain the king as their
ally and keep their hold on Sicily, they must fit out a fleet.
