ith the events of this
war. Such of the captives as belonged to the Latin confederacy being
dismissed without ransom, and the Romans thrown into chains, Hannibal
ordered the bodies of his own men to be gathered from the heaps of the
enemy, and buried: the body of Flaminius too, which was searched for
with great diligence for burial, he could not find. On the first
intelligence of this defeat at Rome, a concourse of the people,
dismayed and terrified, took place in the forum. The matrons,
wandering through the streets, ask all they meet, what sudden disaster
was reported? what was the fate of the army? And when the multitude,
like a full assembly, having directed their course to the comitium and
senate-house, were calling upon the magistrates, at length, a little
before sunset, Marcus Pomponius, the praetor, declares, "We have been
defeated in a great battle;" and though nothing more definite was
heard from him, yet, full of the rumours which they had caught one
from another, they carry back to their homes intelligence, that the
consul, with a great part of his troops, was slain; that a few only
survived, and these either widely dispersed in flight through Etruria,
or else captured by the enemy. As many as had been the calamities of
the vanquished army, into so many anxieties were the minds of those
distracted whose relations had served under Flaminius, and who were
uninformed of what had been the fate of their friends, nor does any
one know certainly what he should either hope or fear. During the next
and several successive days, a greater number of women almost than men
stood at the gates, waiting either for some one of their friends or
for intelligence of them, surrounding and earnestly interrogating
those they met: nor could they be torn away from those they knew
especially, until they had regularly inquired into every thing. Then
as they retired from the informants you might discern their various
expressions of countenance according as intelligence, pleasing or sad,
was announced to each; and those who congratulated or condoled on
their return home. The joy and grief of the women were especially
manifested. They report that one, suddenly meeting her son, who had
returned safe, expired at the very door before his face--that another,
who sat grieving at her house at the falsely reported death of her
son, became a corpse, from excessive joy, at the first sight of him on
his return. The praetors detained the senators in