r
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.

[Footnote 13: Near the end of VII, 17.]

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. [Sidenote: FRAG. 33^9] THE 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,
[Sidenote: FRAG. 33^11] FOR 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 de