[22.58] After his great success at Cannae, Hannibal made his arrangements more as though his victory were a complete and decisive one than as if the war were still going on. The prisoners were brought before him and separated into two groups; the allies were treated as they had been at the Trebia and at Trasumennus, after some kind words they were dismissed without ransom; the Romans, too, were treated as they had never been before, for when they appeared before him he addressed them in quite a friendly way. He had no deadly feud, he told them, with Rome, all he was fighting for was his country's honour as a sovereign power. His fathers had yielded to Roman courage, his one object now was that the Romans should yield to his good fortune and courage. He now gave the prisoners permission to ransom themselves; each horseman at 500 "chariot pieces" and each foot-soldier at 300, and the slaves at 100 per head. This was somewhat more than the cavalry had agreed to when they surrendered, but they were only too glad to accept any terms. It was settled that they should elect ten of their number to go to the senate at Rome, and the only guarantee required was that they should take an oath to return. They were accompanied by Carthalo, a Carthaginian noble, who was to sound the feelings of the senators, and if they were inclined towards peace he was to propose terms. When the delegates had left the camp, one of them, a man of an utterly un-Roman temper, returned to the camp, as if he had forgotten something, and in this way hoped to free himself from his oath. He rejoined his comrades before nightfall. When it was announced that the party were on their way to Rome a lictor was despatched to meet Carthalo and order him in the name of the Dictator to quit the territory of Rome before night.

[22.59] The Dictator admitted the prisoners' delegates to an audience of the senate. Their leader, M. Junius, spoke as follows: "Senators: we are every one of us aware that no State has held its prisoners of war of less account than our own, but, unless we think our case a better one than we have any right to do, we would urge that none have ever fallen into the hands of the enemy who were more deserving of consideration than we are. For we did not give up our arms during the battle from sheer cowardice; standing on the heaps of the slain we kept up the struggle till close on night, and only then did we retire into camp; for the remainder of the day and all through the night we defended our entrenchments; the following day we were surrounded by the victorious army and cut off from the water, and there was no hope whatever now of our forcing our way through the dense masses of the enemy. We did not think it a crime for some of Rome's soldiers to survive the battle of Cannae, seeing that 50,000 men had been butchered there, and therefore in the very last resort we consented to have a price fixed for our ransom and surrendered to the enemy those arms which were no longer of the slightest use to us. Besides, we had heard that our ancestors had ransomed themselves from the Gauls with gold, and that your fathers, sternly as they set themselves against all conditions of peace, did nevertheless send delegates to Tarentum to arrange the ransom of the prisoners. But neither the battle at the Alia against the Gauls nor that at Heraclea against Pyrrhus was disgraced by the actual losses sustained so much as by the panic and flight which marked them. The plains of Cannae are covered by heaps of Roman dead, and we should not be here now if the enemy had not lacked arms and strength to slay us. There are some amongst us who were never in the battle at all, but were left to guard the camp, and when it was surrendered they fell into the hands of the enemy. I do not envy the fortune or the circumstances of any man, whether he be a fellow-citizen or a fellow-soldier, nor would I wish it to be said that I had glorified myself by depreciating others, but this I will say, not even those who fled from the battle, mostly without arms, and did not stay their flight till they had reached Venusia or Canusium, can claim precedence over us or boast that they are more of a defence to the State than we are. But you will find both in them and in us good and gallant soldiers, only we shall be still more eager to serve our country because it will be through your kindness that we shall have been ransomed and restored to our fatherland. You have enlisted men of all ages and of every condition; I hear that eight thousand slaves are armed. Our number is no less, and it will not cost more to ransom us than it did to purchase them, but if I were to compare ourselves as soldiers with them, I should be offering an insult to the name of Roman. I should think, senators, that in deciding upon a matter like this, you should also take into consideration, if you are disposed to be too severe, to what sort of an enemy you are going to abandon us. Is it to a Pyrrhus, who treated his prisoners as though they were his guests? Is it not rather to a barbarian, and what is worse, a Carthaginian, of whom it is difficult to judge whether he is more rapacious or more cruel? Could you see the chains, the squalor, the disgusting appearance of your fellow-citizens, the sight would, I am sure, move you no less than if, on the other hand, you beheld your legions lying scattered over the plains of Cannae. You can behold the anxiety and the tears of our kinsmen as they stand in the vestibule of your House and await your reply. If they are in such anxiety and suspense about us and about those who are not here, what, think you, must be the feelings of the men themselves whose life and liberty are at stake? Why, good heavens! even if Hannibal, contrary to his nature, chose to be kind to us, we should still think life not worth living after you had decided that we did not deserve to be ransomed. Years ago the prisoners who were released by Pyrrhus without ransom returned to Rome, but they returned in company with the foremost men of the State who had been sent to effect their ransom. Am I to return to my native country as a citizen not thought worth three hundred coins ? Each of us has his own feelings, senators. I know that my life and person are at stake, but I dread more the peril to my good name, in case we depart condemned and repulsed by you; for men will never believe that you grudged the cost."

[22.60] No sooner had he finished than a tearful cry arose from the crowd in the comitium; they stretched their hands towards the Senate-house and implored the senators to give them back their children, their brothers, and their relations. Fear and affection had brought even women amongst the crowd of men who thronged the Forum. After the strangers had withdrawn the debate commenced in the senate. There was great difference of opinion; some said that they ought to be ransomed at the expense of the State, others were of opinion that no public expense ought to be incurred, but they ought not to be prevented from defraying the cost from private sources, and in cases where ready money was not available it should be advanced from the treasury on personal security and mortgages. When it came to the turn of T. Manlius Torquatus, a man of old-fashioned and, some thought, excessive strictness, to give his opinion, he is said to have spoken in these terms: "If the delegates had confined themselves to asking that those who are in the hands of the enemy might be ransomed, I should have stated my opinion in few words without casting reflections on any of them, for all that would have been necessary would be to remind you that you should maintain the custom and usage handed down from our forefathers by setting an example necessary for military discipline. But as it is, since they have almost treated their surrender to the enemy as a thing to be proud of, and think it right that they should receive more consideration than the prisoners taken in the field or those who reached Venusia and Canusium, or even the consul himself, I will not allow you to remain in ignorance of what actually happened. I only wish that the facts which I am about to allege could be brought before the army at Canusium, which is best able to testify to each man's courage or cowardice, or at least that we had before us P. Sempronius Tuditanus, for if these men had followed him they would at this moment be in the Roman camp, not prisoners in the hands of the foe.

"The enemy had nearly all returned to their camp, tired out with fighting, to make merry over their victory, and these men had the night clear for a sortie. Seven thousand men could easily have made a sortie, even through dense masses of the enemy, but they did not make any attempt to do so on their own initiative, nor would they follow any one else. Nearly the whole night through P. Sempronius Tuditanus was continually warning them and urging them to follow him, whilst only a few of the enemy were watching their camp, whilst all was quiet and silent, whilst the night could still conceal their movements; before it was light they could reach safety and be protected by the cities of our allies. If he had spoken as that military tribune P. Decius spoke in the days of our fathers, or as Calpurnius Flamma, in the first Punic war, when we were young men, spoke to his three hundred volunteers whom he was leading to the capture of a height situated in the very centre of the enemy's position: 'Let us,' he exclaimed, 'die, my men, and by our death rescue our blockaded legions from their peril' - if, I say, P. Sempronius had spoken thus, I should not regard you as men, much less as Romans, if none had come forward as the comrade of so brave a man. But the way he pointed out to you led to safety quite as much as to glory, he would have brought you back to your country, your parents, your wives, and your children. You have not courage enough to save yourselves; what would you do if you had to die for your country? All round you on that day were lying fifty thousand dead, Romans and allies. If so many examples of courage did not inspire you, nothing ever will. If such an awful disaster did not make you hold your lives cheap, none will ever do so. It is whilst you are free men, with all your rights as citizens, that you must show your love for your country, or rather, while it is your country and you are its citizens. Now you are showing that love too late, your rights forfeited, your citizenship renounced, you have become the slaves of the Carthaginians. Is money going to restore you to the position which you have lost through cowardice and crime? You would not listen to your own countryman Sempronius when he bade you seize your arms and follow him, you did listen shortly afterwards to Hannibal when he bade you give up your arms and betray your camp. But why do I only charge these men with cowardice when I can prove them guilty of actual crime? For not only did they refuse to follow him when he gave them good advice, but they tried to stop him and keep him back, until a body of truly brave men drew their swords and drove back the cowards. P. Sempronius had actually to force his way through his own countrymen before he could do so through the enemy! Would our country care to have such as these for her citizens when, had all those who fought at Cannae been like them, she would not have had amongst them a single citizen worth the name! Out of seven thousand men in arms there were six hundred who had the courage to force their way, and returned to their country free men with arms in their hands. The enemy did not stop these six hundred, how safe the way would have been, do you not think? for a force of almost two legions. You would have to-day, senators, at Canusium 20,000 brave loyal soldiers; but as for these men, how can they possibly be good and loyal citizens? And as to their being 'brave,' they do not even themselves assert that - unless, indeed, some one chooses to imagine that whilst they were trying to stop the others from making the sortie, they were really encouraging them, or that, fully aware that their own timidity and cowardice was the cause of their becoming slaves, they feel no grudge towards the others for having won both safety and glory through their courage. Though they might have got away in the dead of the night, they preferred to skulk in their tents and wait for the daylight and with it the enemy. But you will say, if they lacked courage to leave the camp they had courage enough to defend it bravely; blockaded for several days and nights, they protected the rampart with their arms, and themselves with the rampart; at last, after going to the utmost lengths of endurance and daring, when every support of life failed, and they were so weakened by starvation that they had not strength to bear the weight of their arms, they were in the end conquered by the necessities of nature more than by the force of arms. What are the facts? At daybreak the enemy approached the rampart; within two hours, without trying their fortune in any conflict, they gave up their arms and themselves. This, you see, was their two days' soldiership. When duty called them to keep their line and fight they fled to their camp, when they ought to have fought at the rampart they surrendered their camp; they are useless alike in the field and in the camp. Am I to ransom you? When you ought to have made your way out of the camp you hesitated and remained there, when it was obligatory for you to remain there and defend the camp with your arms you gave up camp, arms, and yourselves to the enemy. No, senators, I do not think that those men ought to be ransomed any more than I should think it right to surrender to Hannibal the men who forced their way out of the camp through the midst of the enemy and by that supreme act of courage restored themselves to their fatherland."

[22.61] Although most of the senators had relations among the prisoners, there were two considerations which weighed with them at the close of Manlius' speech. One was the practice of the State which from early times had shown very little indulgence to prisoners of war. The other was the amount of money that would be required, for they were anxious that the treasury should not be exhausted, a large sum having been already paid out in purchasing and arming the slaves, and they did not wish to enrich Hannibal who, according to rumour, was in particular need of money. When the melancholy reply was given that the prisoners were not ransomed, the prevailing grief was intensified by the loss of so many citizens, and the delegates were accompanied to the gates by a weeping and protesting crowd. One of them went to his home because he considered himself released from his vow by his pretended return to the camp. When this became known it was reported to the senate, and they unanimously decided that he should be arrested and conveyed to Hannibal under a guard furnished by the State. There is another account extant as to the fate of the prisoners. According to this tradition ten came at first, and there was a debate in the senate as to whether they should be allowed within the City or not; they were admitted on the understanding that the senate would not grant them an audience. As they stayed longer than was generally expected, three other delegates arrived - L. Scribonius, C. Calpurnius, and L. Manlius - and a relative of Scribonius who was a tribune of the plebs made a motion in the senate to ransom the prisoners. The senate decided that they should not be ransomed, and the three who came last returned to Hannibal, but the ten remained in Rome. They alleged that they had absolved themselves from their oath because after starting on their journey they had returned to Hannibal under the pretext of reviewing the list of the prisoners' names. The question of surrendering them was hotly debated in the senate, and those in favour of this course were beaten by only a few votes. Under the next censors, however, they were so crushed beneath every mark of disgrace and infamy that some of them immediately committed suicide; the others not only avoided the Forum for all their after life, but almost shunned the light of day and the faces of men. It is easier to feel astonishment at such discrepancies amongst our authorities than to determine what is the truth.

How far that disaster surpassed previous ones is shown by one simple fact. Up to that day the loyalty of our allies had remained unshaken, now it began to waver, for no other reason, we may be certain, than that they despaired of the maintenance of our empire. The tribes who revolted to the Carthaginians were the Atellani, the Calatini, the Hirpini, a section of the Apulians, all the Samnite cantons with the exception of the Pentri, all the Bruttii and the Lucanians. In addition to these, the Uzentini and almost the whole of the coast of Magna Graecia, the people of Tarentum Crotona and Locri, as well as all Cisalpine Gaul. Yet, in spite of all their disasters and the revolt of their allies, no one anywhere in Rome mentioned the word "Peace," either before the consul's return or after his arrival when all the memories of their losses were renewed. Such a lofty spirit did the citizens exhibit in those days that though the consul was coming back from a terrible defeat for which they knew he was mainly responsible, he was met by a vast concourse drawn from every class of society, and thanks were formally voted to him because he "had not despaired of the republic." Had he been commander-in-chief of the Carthaginians there was no torture to which he would not have been subjected.