successor Gaius Hostilius Mancinus more fortunate (617).
But the catastrophe was brought about not so much by the arms of the
Numantines, as by the lax and wretched military discipline of the Roman
generals and by--what was its natural consequence--the annually-
increasing dissoluteness, insubordination, and cowardice of the Roman
soldiers. The mere rumour, which moreover was false, that the
Cantabri and Vaccaei were advancing to the relief of Numantia,
induced the Roman army to evacuate the camp by night without orders,
and to seek shelter in the entrenchments constructed sixteen years
before by Nobilior.(5) The Numantines, informed of their sudden
departure, hotly pursued the fugitive army, and surrounded it:
there remained to it no choice save to fight its way with sword in
hand through the enemy, or to conclude peace on the terms laid down
by the Numantines. Although the consul was personally a man of
honour, he was weak and little known. Tiberius Gracchus, who served
in the army as quaestor, had more influence with the Celtiberians from
the hereditary respect in which he was held on account of his father
who had so wisely organized the province of the Ebro, and induced the
Numantines to be content with an equitable treaty of peace sworn to
by all the staff-officers. But the senate not only recalled the
general immediately, but after long deliberation caused a proposal to
be submitted to the burgesses that the convention should be treated
as they had formerly treated that of Caudium, in other words, that
they should refuse to ratify it and should devolve the responsibility
for it on those by whom it had been concluded. By right this
category ought to have included all the officers who had sworn to the
treaty; but Gracchus and the others were saved by their connections.
Mancinus alone, who did not belong to the circles of the highest
aristocracy, was destined to pay the penalty for his own and others'
guilt. Stripped of his insignia, the Roman consular was conducted to
the enemy's outposts, and, when the Numantines refused to receive him
that they might not on their part acknowledge the treaty as null,
the late commander-in-chief stood in his shirt and with his hands tied
behind his back for a whole day before the gates of Numantia, a
pitiful spectacle to friend and foe. Yet the bitter lesson seemed
utterly lost on the successor of Mancinus, his colleague in the
consulship, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. While the