they
could transfer their guilt. But they trusted that sufficient atonement
had been made by the death of so many of their senators by poison and
the hands of the executioner. They said, "that a few only of their
nobles remained, being such as were not induced by the consciousness
of their demerit to adopt any desperate measure respecting themselves,
and had not been condemned to death through the resentment of their
conquerors. That these implored the restoration of their liberty, and
some portion of their goods for themselves and families, being
citizens of Rome, and most of them connected with the Romans by
affinity and now too near relationship, in consequence of
intermarriages which had taken place for a long period." After this
they were removed from the senate-house, when for a short time doubts
were entertained whether it would be right or not to send for Quintus
Fulvius from Capua, (for Claudius, the proconsul, died after the
capture of that place,) that the question might be canvassed in the
presence of the general who had been concerned, as was done in the
affair between Marcellus and the Sicilians. But afterwards, when they
saw in the senate Marcus Atilius, and Caius Fulvius, the brother of
Flaccus, his lieutenant-generals, and Quintus Minucius, and Lucius
Veturius Philo, who were also his lieutenant-generals, who had been
present at every transaction; and being unwilling that Fulvius should
be recalled from Capua, or the Campanians put off, Marcus Atilius
Regulus, who possessed the greatest weight of any of those present who
had been at Capua, being asked his opinion, thus spoke: "I believe I
assisted at the council held by the consuls after the capture of
Capua, when inquiry was made whether any of the Campanians had
deserved well of our state; and it was found that two women had done
so; Vestia Oppia, a native of Atella and an inhabitant of Capua, and
Faucula Cluvia, formerly a common woman. The former had daily offered
sacrifice for the safety and success of the Roman people, and the
latter had clandestinely supplied the starving prisoners with food.
The sentiments of all the rest of the Campanians towards us had been
the same," he said, "as those of the Carthaginians; and those who had
been decapitated by Fulvius, were the most conspicuous in rank, but
not in guilt. I do not see," said he, "how the senate can decide
respecting the Campanians who are Roman citizens, without an order of
the people. And t