y, some
may say, and the walls of it, and the crowd who dwell in it, by which
the city is inhabited. But in fact, in case of the destruction of this
army, all these are betrayed, not preserved. For who will protect
them? An unwarlike and unarmed multitude, shall I suppose? Yes, just
as they defended them against the attack of the Gauls. Will they call
to their succour an army from Veii, with Camillus at its head? Here on
the spot, I repeat, are all our hopes and strength; by preserving
which, we preserve our country; by delivering them up to death, we
abandon and betray our country. But a surrender is shameful and
ignominious. True: but such ought to be our affection for our country,
that we should save it by our own disgrace, if necessity required, as
freely as by our death. Let therefore that indignity be undergone, how
great soever, and let us submit to that necessity which even the gods
themselves do not overcome. Go, consuls, ransom the state for arms,
which your ancestors ransomed with gold."

5. The consuls having gone to Pontius to confer with him, when he
talked, in the strain of a conqueror, of a treaty, they declared that
such could not be concluded without an order of the people, nor
without the ministry of the heralds, and the other customary rites.
Accordingly the Caudine peace was not ratified by settled treaty, as
is commonly believed, and even asserted by Claudius, but by
conventional sureties. For what occasion would these be either for
sureties or hostages in the former case, where the ratification is
performed by the imprecation, "that whichever nation shall give
occasion to the said terms being violated, may Jupiter strike that
nation in like manner as the swine is struck by the heralds." The
consuls, lieutenants-general, quaestors, and military tribunes, became
sureties; and the names of all these who became sureties are extant;
where, had the business been transacted by treaty, none would have
appeared but those of the two heralds. On account of the necessary
delay of the treaty six hundred horsemen were demanded as hostages,
who were to suffer death if the compact were not fulfilled; a time was
then fixed for delivering up the hostages, and sending away the troops
disarmed. The return of the consuls renewed the general grief in the
camp, insomuch that the men hardly refrained from offering violence to
them, "by whose rashness," they said, "they had been brought into such
a situation; and through