me which they spent in sending
for old men from home to give them advice, to send ambassadors to
Rome, and to negotiate a peace and treaty with the senate, and with
the people? It would have been a journey of only three days to
expeditious travellers. In the interim, matters might have rested
under a truce, that is, until their ambassadors should have brought
from Rome, either certain victory or peace. That would have been
really a compact, on the faith of sureties, for we should have become
sureties by order of the people. But, neither would ye have passed
such an order, nor should we have pledged our faith; nor was it right
that the affair should have any other issue, than, that they should be
vainly mocked with a dream, as it were, of greater prosperity than
their minds were capable of comprehending, and that the same fortune,
which had entangled our army, should extricate it; that an ineffectual
victory should be frustrated by a more ineffectual peace; and that a
convention, on the faith of a surety, should be introduced, which
bound no other person beside the surety. For what part had ye,
conscript fathers; what part had the people, in this affair? Who can
call upon you? Who can say, that he has been deceived by you? Can the
enemy? Can a citizen? To the enemy ye engaged nothing. Ye ordered no
citizen to engage on your behalf. Ye are therefore no way concerned
either with us, to whom ye gave no commission; nor with the Samnites,
with whom ye transacted no business. We are sureties to the Samnites;
debtors, sufficiently wealthy in that which is our own, in that which
we can offer--our bodies and our minds. On these, let them exercise
their cruelty; against these, let them whet their resentment and their
swords. As to what relates to the tribunes, consider whether the
delivering them up can be effected at the present time, or if it must
be deferred to another day. Meanwhile let us, Titus Veturius, and the
rest concerned, offer our worthless persons, as atonements for the
breaking our engagements, and, by our sufferings liberate the Roman
armies."

10. Both these arguments, and, still more, the author of them,
powerfully affected the senators; as they did likewise every one, not
excepting even the tribunes of the commons who declared, that they
would be directed by the senate. They then instantly resigned their
office, and were delivered, together with the rest, to the heralds, to
be conducted to Caudium. On passing t