r present vanquished
and captive state, they were not willing to acknowledge their
situation, he would send them under the yoke unarmed, each with a
single garment; that the other conditions of peace should be such as
were just between the conquerors and the conquered. If their troops
would depart, and their colonies be withdrawn out of the territories
of the Samnites; for the future, the Romans and Samnites, under a
treaty of equality, shall live according to their own respective laws.
On these terms he was ready to negotiate with the consuls: and if any
of these should not be accepted, he forbade the ambassadors to come to
him again." When the result of this embassy was made known, such
general lamentation suddenly arose, and such melancholy took
possession of them, that had they been told that all were to die on
the spot, they could not have felt deeper affliction. After silence
continued a long time, and the consuls were not able to utter a word,
either in favour of a treaty so disgraceful, or against a treaty so
necessary; at length, Lucius Lentulus, who was the first among the
lieutenants-general, both in respect of bravery, and of the public
honours which he had attained, addressed them thus: "Consuls, I have
often heard my father say, that he was the only person in the Capitol
who did not advise the senate to ransom the state from the Gauls with
gold; and these he would not concur in, because they had not been
enclosed with a trench and rampart by the enemy, (who were remarkably
slothful with respect to works and raising fortifications,) and
because they might sally forth, if not without great danger, yet
without certain destruction. Now if, in like manner as they had it in
their power to run down from the Capitol in arms against their foe, as
men besieged have often sallied out on the besiegers, it were possible
for us to come to blows with the enemy, either on equal or unequal
ground, I would not be wanting in the high quality of my father's
spirit in stating my advice. I acknowledge, indeed, that death, in
defence of our country, is highly glorious; and I am ready, either to
devote myself for the Roman people and the legions, or to plunge into
the midst of the enemy. But in this spot I behold my country: in this
spot, the whole of the Roman legions, and unless these choose to rush
on death in defence of their own individual characters, what have they
which can be preserved by their death? The houses of the cit