iety in behalf of us, and those who are absent, what
think you must be our own feelings, whose lives and liberty are at
stake? By Hercules! should Hannibal himself, contrary to his nature,
be disposed to be lenient towards us, yet we should not consider our
lives worth possessing, since we have seemed unworthy of being
ransomed by you. Formerly, prisoners dismissed by Pyrrhus, without
ransom, returned to Rome; but they returned in company with
ambassadors, the chief men of the state, who were sent to ransom them.
Would I return to my country, a citizen, and not considered worth
three hundred denarii? Every man has his own way of thinking,
conscript fathers. I know that my life and person are at stake. But
the danger which threatens my reputation affects me most, if we should
go away rejected and condemned by you; for men will never suppose that
you grudged the price of our redemption."

60. When he had finished his address, the crowd of persons in the
comitium immediately set up a loud lamentation, and stretched out
their hands to the senate, imploring them to restore to them their
children, their brothers, and their kinsmen. Their fears and affection
for their kindred had brought the women also with the crowd of men in
the forum. Witnesses being excluded, the matter began to be discussed
in the senate. There being a difference of opinion, and some advising
that they should be ransomed at the public charge, others, that the
state should be put to no expense, but that they should not be
prevented redeeming themselves at their own cost; and that those who
had not the money at present should receive a loan from the public
coffer, and security given to the people by their sureties and
properties; Titus Manlius Torquatus, a man of primitive, and, as some
considered, over-rigorous severity, being asked his opinion, is
reported thus to have spoken: "Had the deputies confined themselves to
making a request, in behalf of those who are in the hands of the
enemy, that they might be ransomed, I should have briefly given my
opinion, without inveighing against any one. For what else would have
been necessary but to admonish you, that you ought to adhere to the
custom handed down from your ancestors, a precedent indispensable to
military discipline. But now, since they have almost boasted of having
surrendered themselves to the enemy, and have claimed to be preferred,
not only to those who were captured by the enemy in the field, but