25.6
The
principal officers of the cavalry, with the centurions of highest rank and the
pick of the legionaries, had been allowed by Lentulus to send a deputation to
M. Marcellus in Italy. One was allowed to speak on behalf of the rest, and
this is what he said: "We should have approached you, Marcellus, when you
were consul, in Italy, as soon as that severe if not unjust resolution of the
senate was passed concerning us, had we not hoped that after being sent into
a province thrown into confusion by the death of its kings, to take part in a
serious war against Sicilians and Carthaginians combined, we should have
made reparation to the senate by our blood and our wounds in the same way
that those who were taken by Pyrrhus at Heraclea, within the memory of our
fathers, made reparation by fighting against Pyrrhus afterwards. And yet,
what have we done, senators, that you should be wrath with us then or that
we should deserve your anger now? I seem to myself to be gazing on the
faces of both the consuls and of the whole senate when I look at you,
Marcellus; if we had had you as our consul at Cannae, both we and the
republic would have met with better fortune.
"Allow me, I pray you, before I complain of our treatment, to clear
ourselves of the guilt which is laid to our charge. If it was not through the
anger of the gods or through the ordering of that destiny by whose laws the
chain of human affairs is immutably linked together, but by the fault of man
that we perished at Cannae, whose fault, pray, was it? The fault of the
soldiers or of their commanders? As a soldier I will never say a word about
my commander, though I know that he was specially thanked by the senate
because he did not despair of the republic, and has had his command
extended every year since his flight from Cannae. Those of the survivors
from that disaster, who were our military tribunes at the time, solicited and
obtained office, as we have heard, and are in command of provinces. Do you
lightly forgive yourselves and your children, senators, whilst you reserve
your anger for poor wretches like us? While it was no disgrace for the consul
and the foremost men in the State to flee when all hope was lost, did you
send us, the common soldiers, to meet certain death in the battle field? At
the Alia almost the entire army fled, at the Caudine Forks they delivered up
their arms to the enemy without even attempting to fight, not to mention
other shameful defeats that our armies have suffered. But so far were those
armies from having any humiliation inflicted upon them, that the City of
Rome was recovered by the very army which had fled from the Alia to Veii,
and the Caudine legions who had returned to Rome without their arms were
sent back armed to Samniun, and made that same enemy pass under the yoke
who had enjoyed seeing them undergo that humiliation. Can any man charge
the army at Cannae with flight or cowardice when more than 50,000 men fell
there, when the consul fled with only seventy horsemen, when not one
survives who fought there except those whom the enemy, wearied with
slaughter, left alone. When the ransom of the prisoners was vetoed we were
universally praised because we had saved ourselves for our country, because
we returned to the consul at Venusia and presented the appearance of a
regular army. But as it is, we are in a worse case than those prisoners in our
fathers' days; for all that they had to endure was a change in their arms, in
their military status, in their quarters in camp, and these they recovered by
the one service they rendered to the State in fighting a successful battle. Not
one of them was sent into exile, not one was deprived of the prospect of
obtaining his discharge, and above all they had the chance of putting an end
either to their life or their disgrace by fighting the enemy. But we, against
whom no charge can be brought except that it is through our fault that a
single Roman soldier is left alive after the battle of Cannae -we, I say, have
not only been sent far away from our native soil and from Italy, but we have
been placed out of reach of the enemy, we are to grow old in exile, with no
hope, no chance, of wiping out our shame, or of appeasing our
fellow-citizens, or even of dying an honourable death. We are not asking for
an end to our ignominy or for the rewards of valour, we only ask to be
allowed to prove our mettle and to show our courage. We ask for labours
and dangers, for a chance of doing our duty as men and as soldiers. This is
the second year of the war in Sicily with all its hard-fought battles. The
Carthaginians are capturing some cities, the Romans are taking others,
infantry and cavalry meet in the shock of battle, at Syracuse a great struggle
is going on by land and sea, we hear the shouts of the combatants and the
clash of their arms, and we are sitting idly by, as though we had neither
weapons nor hands to use them. The legions of slaves have fought many
pitched battles under Tiberius Sempronius; they have as their reward
freedom and citizenship, we implore you to treat us at least as slaves who
have been purchased for this war, and to allow us to meet and fight the
enemy and so win our freedom. Are you willing to make proof of our
courage by sea or by land, in the open field or against city walls? We ask for
whatever brings the hardest toil and the greatest danger, if only what ought
to have been done at Cannae may be done as soon as we can do it, now. For
all our life since has been but one long agony of shame."