ansoming themselves, and that the price per
head should be five hundred denarii for a horseman, three hundred for
a foot soldier, and one hundred for a slave." Although some addition
was made to that sum for the cavalry, which they stipulated for
themselves when they surrendered, yet they joyfully accepted any terms
of entering into the compact. They determined that ten persons should
be selected, by their own votes, who might go to Rome to the senate;
nor was any other guarantee of their fidelity taken than that they
should swear that they would return. With these was sent Carthalo, a
noble Carthaginian, who might propose terms, if perchance their minds
were inclined towards peace. When they had gone out of the camp, one
of their body, a man who had very little of the Roman character, under
pretence of having forgotten something, returned to the camp, for the
purpose of freeing himself from the obligation of his oath, and
overtook his companions before night. When it was announced that they
had arrived at Rome, a lictor was despatched to meet Carthalo, to tell
him, in the words of the dictator, to depart from the Roman
territories before night.

59. An audience of the senate was granted by the dictator to the
delegates of the prisoners. The chief of them, Marcus Junius, thus
spoke: "There is not one of us, conscript fathers, who is not aware
that there never was a nation which held prisoners in greater contempt
than our own. But unless our own cause is dearer to us than it should
be, never did men fall into the hands of the enemy who less deserved
to be disregarded than we do; for we did not surrender our arms in the
battle through fear; but having prolonged the battle almost till
night-fall, while standing upon heaps of our slaughtered countrymen,
we betook ourselves to our camp. For the remainder of the day and
during the following night, although exhausted with exertion and
wounds, we protected our rampart. On the following day, when, beset by
the enemy, we were deprived of water, and there was no hope of
breaking through the dense bands of the enemy; and, moreover, not
considering it an impiety that any Roman soldier should survive the
battle of Cannae, after fifty thousand of our army had been butchered;
then at length we agreed upon terms on which we might be ransomed and
let off; and our arms, in which there was no longer any protection, we
delivered to the enemy. We had been informed that our ancestors also
ha