(BOOK 8, BOISSEVAIN.)

One of the latter was Lucius Papirius, also called Cursor from his physical condition (he was a very fleet runner) and on account of his practicing running. After this Papirius as dictator with Fabius Rullus as master of the horse was sent out against the Samnites and by defeating them compelled them to agree to such terms as he wished. But when he had resigned his leadership they again arose in arms. They were attacked anew by the dictator Aulus Cornelius, Frag. 333and being defeated made proposals of peace to the men at rome. they sent them all the captives that they had, and ascribed the responsibility for the war to rutulus, a man of influence among them. his bones, since he anticipated them in committing suicide, they scattered abroad. yet they did not obtain their peace, being accounted untrustworthy; but the victors, though accepting the prisoners, voted for relentless war against them. Frag. 334the romans, then, expecting in their extreme arrogance that they should capture them all at the first blow, succumbed to a terrible disaster. the samnites, being badly frightened and thinking the refusal to make peace a calamity, fought with desperation; and by planting an ambuscade in a narrow spot rather closely hemmed in by hills they both captured the camp and seized alive the whole force of the romans, all of whom they sent under the yoke.—What the operation of the yoke was has already been described by me above.[13]—However, they killed not a man but took away their arms and horses and everything else they had save one garment, and released them thus stripped of possessions under an agreement that they should leave Samnite territory and be their allies on an equal footing. In order to insure the articles of the agreement being ratified also by the senate, they retained six hundred of the knights to serve as hostages.

The consuls Spurius Postumius and Tiberius Calvinus with their army immediately withdrew, and at night they and the most notable of the rest of the force entered Rome, while the remaining soldiers scattered through the country districts. Frag. 339the men in the city on hearing of the event did not find it possible either to be pleased at the survival of their soldiers or to be displeased. when they thought of the calamity their grief was extreme, and the fact that they had suffered such a reverse at the hands of the samnites increased their grief; when they stopped to reflect, however, that if it had come to pass that all had perished, all their interests would have been endangered, they were really pleased at the survival of their own men. But concealing for a time their pleasure they went into mourning and carried on no business in the everyday fashion either at once or subsequently, as long as they had control of affairs. The consuls they deposed forthwith, chose others in their stead, and took counsel about the situation. And they determined not to accept the arrangement; but since it was impossible to take this action without throwing the responsibility upon the men who had conducted the negotiations, they hesitated on the one hand to condemn the consuls and the rest who, associated with the latter in their capacity as holders of certain offices, had made the peace, and they hesitated on the other hand to acquit them, since by so doing they would bring the breach of faith home to themselves. Accordingly they made these very consuls participate in their deliberations and they asked Postumius first of all for his opinion, that he might state separately his sentiments touching his own case, and the shame of having disgrace attach to all of them be avoided. So he came forward and said that their acts ought not to be ratified by the senate and the people, Frag. 3311for they themselves had not acted of their own free will, but under the compulsion of a necessity which the enemy had brought upon them not through valor but through craft and ambuscade. Now men who had practiced deception could not, if they were deceived in turn, have any just complaint against those who turned the tables on them. When he had finished saying this and considerable more of the same nature, the senate found itself at a loss how to act: but as Postumius and Calvinus took the burden of responsibility upon their own shoulders, it was voted that the agreements should not be ratified and that these men should be delivered up.

Both the consuls, therefore, and the remaining officials who had been present when oaths were taken were conducted back to Samnium. Frag. 3314the samnites, however, would not accept them, but demanded back all the captives, and invoked the gods and conjured them by the divine power, and finally they dismissed the men that had been surrendered. The Romans were glad enough to get them back, but were angry at the Samnites whom they attacked in battle and vanquished, after which they accorded them a similar treatment, for they sent them under the yoke in turn and released them without inflicting any other injury. They also got possession of their own knights, who were being held by the Samnites as hostages and were unharmed.

VIII, 1.—After a long interval the Romans under the leadership of Gaius Junius were again warring with the Samnites, when they met with disaster. While Junius was pillaging the hostile territory, the Samnites conveyed their possessions into the Avernian[14] woods, so-called from the fact that on account of the closeness of the trees no bird flies into them. Being there ensconced they set out some herds without herdsmen or guards and quietly sent some pretended deserters who guided the Romans to the booty apparently lying at their disposal. But when the latter had entered the wood, the Samnites surrounded them and did not cease from slaughter till they were completely tired out. And though the Samnites fought on many other occasions against the Romans and were defeated, they would not be quiet, but having acquired the Gauls, besides others, as allies, they made preparations to march upon Rome itself. The Romans, when they learned of it, fell into alarm, for their original inclination to do so was augmented by many portents. On the Capitol blood is reported to have issued for three days from the altar of Jupiter, together with honey on one day, and milk on a second—if anybody can believe it: and in the Forum a bronze statue of Victory set upon a stone pedestal was found standing upon the ground below, without any one's having moved it; and, as it happened, it was facing in that direction from which the Gauls were already approaching. This of itself was enough to terrify the populace, who were even more dismayed by ill-omened interpretations published by the seers. However, a certain Manius, by birth an Etruscan, encouraged them by declaring that Victory, even if she had descended, had gone forward, and being now settled more firmly on the ground indicated to them mastery in the war. Accordingly, many sacrifices, too, should be offered to the gods; for their altars, and particularly those on the Capitol, where they sacrifice thank-offerings for victory, were regularly stained with blood in the midst of their successes and not in their disasters. From these developments, then, he persuaded them to expect some fortunate outcome, but from the honey to expect disease (because invalids crave it) and from the milk famine; for they should encounter so great a scarcity of provisions as to seek for food of native growth and pasturage.

Manius, then, interpreted the omens in this way, Frag. 3322and as his prophecy turned out to be correct, he gained thereafter a reputation for skill and foreknowledge in all matters. Now Volumnius was ordered to make war upon the Samnites; Fabius Maximus Rullus and Publius Decius were chosen consuls and were sent to withstand the Gauls and the other warriors in the Gallic contingent. They, having come with speed to Etruria, saw the camp of Appius, which was fortified by a double palisade; and they pulled up the stakes and carried them off, instructing the soldiers to place their hope of safety in their weapons. So they joined battle with the enemy. Meanwhile a wolf in pursuit of a deer had invaded the space between the two armies and darting toward the Romans passed through their ranks. This encouraged them, for they regarded themselves as having a bond of union with him, since, according to tradition, a she-wolf had reared Romulus. But the deer ran to the other side and was struck down, thus leaving to them fear and the issue of disaster. When the armies collided, Maximus quite easily conquered the foes opposed to him, but Decius was defeated. And recalling the self-devotion of his father, undertaken on account of the dream, he likewise devoted himself, though without giving anybody any information about his act. Scarcely had he let himself be slain, when the men ranged at his side, partly through shame at his deed (feeling that he had perished voluntarily for them) and partly in the hopes of certain victory as a result of this occurrence, checked their flight and nobly withstood their pursuers. At this juncture Maximus, too, assailed the latter in the rear and slaughtered vast numbers. The survivors took to their heels and were annihilated. Fabius Maximus then burned the corpse of Decius together with the spoils and made a truce with such as asked for peace.

The following year Atilius Regulus again waged war with the Samnites. And for a time they carried on an evenly contested struggle, but eventually, after the Samnites had won a victory, the Romans conquered them in turn, took them captive, led them beneath the yoke, and so released them. Frag. 3323the samnites, enraged at what had occurred, resorted to desperate measures with the intention of either conquering or being utterly destroyed, threatening with death him who should remain at home. So these invaded Campania: but the consuls ravaged Samnium, since it was destitute of soldiers, and captured a few cities. Therefore the Samnites abandoning Campania made haste to reach their own land; and having come into hostile collision with one of the consuls they were defeated by a trick and in their flight met with terrible reverses, losing their camp and in addition the fortress to the assistance of which they were advancing. The consul celebrated a triumph and devoted to public uses the goods gathered from the spoils. The other consul made a campaign against the Etruscans and reduced them in short order: he then levied upon them contributions of grain and money, of which he distributed a part to the soldiers and deposited the rest in the treasuries.

However, there befell a mighty pestilence, and the Samnites and Falisci began to bestir themselves; they entertained a contempt for the Romans both on account of the disease and because, since no war menaced, they had chosen the consuls not on grounds of excellence. The Romans, ascertaining the situation, sent out Carvilius along with Junius Brutus, and with Quintus Fabius his father Rullus Maximus, as subcommanders or lieutenants. Brutus worsted the Falisci and plundered their possessions as well as those of the other Etruscans: Fabius marched out of Rome before his father and pushed rapidly forward when he learned that the Samnites were plundering Campania. Falling in with some scouts of theirs and seeing them quickly retire he got the impression that all the enemy were at that point and believed they were in flight. Accordingly, in his hurry to come to blows with them before his father should arrive, in order that the success might appear to be his own and not his elder's, he went ahead with a careless formation. Thus he encountered a compact body of foes and would have been utterly destroyed, had not night intervened. Many of his men died also after that with no physician or relative to attend them, because they had hastened on far ahead of the baggage carriers in the expectation of immediate victory. Of a surety they would have perished on the following day but for the fact that the Samnites, thinking Fabius's father to be near, felt afraid and withdrew.

Frag. 3324those in the city on hearing this became terribly angry, summoned the consul, and wanted to put him on trial. but the old man his father by enumerating his own and his ancestors' brave deeds, by promising that his son should make no record that was unworthy of them, and by urging his son's youth to account for the misfortune, immediately abated their wrath. joining him in the campaign he conquered the samnites in battle, captured their camp, ravaged their country, and drove away great booty. a part of it he devoted to public uses and a part he accorded to the soldiers. for these reasons the romans extolled him and ordered that his son also should command for the future with consular powers and still employ his father as lieutenant. the latter managed and arranged everything for him, sparing his old age not a whit, yet he did not let it be seen that he was executing the business on his own responsibility, but made the glory of his exploits attach to his child.

Frag. 37VIII, 2.—after this, when the tribunes moved an annulment of debts, the people, since this was not yielded by the lenders as well, fell into turmoil: and their turbulent behavior was not quieted until foes came against the city.