TWENTY-SIX***


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THE HISTORY OF ROME; BOOKS NINE TO TWENTY-SIX

Literally Translated, with Notes and Illustrations,
by D. Spillan and Cyrus Edmonds.

TITUS LIVIUS.






BOOK IX.


_Titus Veturius and Spurius Postumius, with their army, surrounded
by the Samnites at the Caudine forks; enter into a treaty, give six
hundred hostages, and are sent under the yoke. The treaty declared
invalid; the two generals and the other sureties sent back to the
Samnites, but are not accepted. Not long after, Papirius Cursor
obliterates this disgrace, by vanquishing the Samnites, sending them
under the yoke, and recovering the hostages. Two tribes added. Appius
Claudius, censor, constructs the Claudian aqueduct, and the Appian
road; admits the sons of freedom into the senate. Successes against
the Apulians, Etruscans, Umbrians, Marsians, Pelignians, Aequans, and
Samnites. Mention made of Alexander the Great, who flourished at this
time; a comparative estimate of his strength, and that of the Roman
people, tending to show, that if he had carried his arms into Italy,
he would not have been as successful there as he had been in the
Eastern countries._

       *        *        *        *        *

1. This year is followed by the convention of Caudium, so memorable on
account of the misfortune of the Romans, the consuls being Titus
Veturius Calvinus and Spurius Postumius. The Samnites had as their
commander that year Caius Ponius, son to Herennius, born of a father
most highly renowned for wisdom, and himself a consummate warrior and
commander. When the ambassadors, who had been sent to make
restitution, returned, without concluding a peace, he said, "That ye
may not think that no purpose has been effected by this embassy,
whatever degree of anger the deities of heaven had conceived against
us, on account of the infraction of the treaty, has been hereby
expiated. I am very confident, that whatever deities they were, whose
will it was that you should be reduced to the necessity of making the
restitution, which had been demanded according to the treaty, it was
not agreeable to them, that our atonement for the breach of treason
should be so haughtily spurned by the Romans. For what more could
possibly be done towards appeasing the gods, and softening the anger
of men, than we have done? The effects of the enemy, taken among the
spoils, which appeared to be our own by the right of war, we restored:
the authors of the war, as we could not deliver them up alive, we
delivered them dead: their goods we carried to Rome, lest by retaining
them, any degree of guilt should remain among us. What more, Roman, do
I owe to thee? what to the treaty? what to the gods, the guarantees of
the treaty? What arbitrator shall I call in to judge of your
resentment, and of my punishment? I decline none; neither nation nor
private person. But if nothing in human law is left to the weak
against stronger, I will appeal to the gods, the avengers of
intolerant arrogance, and will beseech them to turn their wrath
against those for whom neither the restoration of their own effects
nor additional heaps of other men's property, can suffice, whose
cruelty is not satiated by the death of the guilty, by the surrender
of their lifeless bodies, nor by their goods accompanying the
surrender of the owner; who cannot be appeased otherwise than by
giving them our blood to drink, and our entrails to be torn. Samnites,
war is just to those for whom it is necessary, and arms are clear of
impiety for those who have no hope left but in arms. Wherefore, as in
every human undertaking, it is of the utmost importance what matter
men may set about with the favour, what under the displeasure of the
gods, be assured that the former wars ye waged in opposition to the
gods more than to men; in this, which is now impending, ye will act
under the immediate guidance of the gods themselves."

2. After uttering these predictions, not more cheering than true, he
led out the troops, and placed his camp about Caudium as much out of
view as possible. From thence he sent to Calatia, where he heard that
the Roman consuls were encamped, ten soldiers, in the habit of
she