guiltless of this day's disaster, take this horse, while you have any
strength remaining, and I am with you to raise you up and protect you.
Make not this battle more calamitous by the death of a consul. There
is sufficient matter for tears and grief without this addition." In
reply the consul said: "Do thou indeed go on and prosper, Cneius
Servilius, in your career of virtue! But beware lest you waste in
bootless commiseration the brief opportunity of escaping from the
hands of the enemy. Go and tell the fathers publicly, to fortify the
city of Rome, and garrison it strongly before the victorious enemy
arrive: and tell Quintus Fabius individually, that Lucius Aemilius
lived, and now dies, mindful of his injunctions. Allow me to expire
amid these heaps of my slaughtered troops, that I may not a second
time be accused after my consulate, or stand forth as the accuser of
my colleague, in order to defend my own innocence by criminating
another." While finishing these words, first a crowd of their flying
countrymen, after that the enemy, came upon them; they overwhelm the
consul with their weapons, not knowing who he was: in the confusion
his horse rescued Lentulus. After that they fly precipitately. Seven
thousand escaped to the lesser camp, ten to the greater, about two
thousand to the village itself of Cannae who were immediately
surrounded by Carthalo and the cavalry, no fortifications protecting
the village. The other consul, whether by design or by chance, made
good his escape to Venusia with about seventy horse, without mingling
with any party of the flying troops. Forty thousand foot, two thousand
seven hundred horse, there being an equal number of citizens and
allies, are said to have been slain. Among both the quaestors of the
consuls, Lucius Atilius and Lucius Furius Bibaculus; twenty-one
military tribunes; several who had passed the offices of consul,
praetor, and aedile; among these they reckon Cneius Servilius
Germinus, and Marcus Minucius, who had been master of the horse on a
former year, and consul some years before: moreover eighty, either
senators, or who had borne those offices by which they might be
elected into the senate, and who had voluntarily enrolled themselves
in the legions. Three thousand infantry and three hundred cavalry are
said to have been captured in that battle.

50. Such is the battle of Cannae, equal in celebrity to the defeat at
the Allia: but as it was less important in respect to