The Dictator admitted the prisoners' delegates to an audience of the senate. Their leader, M. Junius, spoke as follows: "Senators: we are every one of us aware that no State has held its prisoners of war of less account than our own, but, unless [2??] we think our case a better one than we have any right to do, we would urge that none have ever fallen into the hands of the enemy who were more deserving of consideration than we are. [3] For we did not give up our arms during the battle from sheer cowardice; standing on the heaps of the slain we kept up the struggle till close on night, and only then did we retire into camp; [4] for the remainder of the day and all through the night we defended our entrenchments; [5] the following day we were surrounded by the victorious army and cut off from the water, and there was no hope whatever now of our forcing our way through the dense masses of the enemy. [6] We did not think it a crime for some of Rome's soldiers to survive the battle of Cannae, seeing that 50,000 men had been butchered there, and therefore in the very last resort we consented to have a price fixed for our ransom and surrendered to the enemy those arms which were no longer of the slightest use to us. [7] Besides, we had heard that our ancestors had ransomed themselves from the Gauls with gold, and that your fathers, sternly as they set themselves against all conditions of peace, did nevertheless send delegates to Tarentum to arrange the ransom of the prisoners. [8] But neither the battle at the Alia against the Gauls nor that at Heraclea against Pyrrhus was disgraced by the actual losses sustained so much as by the panic and flight which marked them. The plains of Cannae are covered by heaps of Roman dead, and we should not be here now if the enemy had not lacked arms and strength to slay us. [9] There are some amongst us who were never in the battle at all, but were left to guard the camp, and when it was surrendered they fell into the hands of the enemy. [10] I do not envy the fortune or the circumstances of any man, whether he be a fellow-citizen or a fellow-soldier, nor would I wish it to be said that I had glorified myself by depreciating others, but this I will say, not even those who fled from the battle, mostly without arms, and did not stay their flight till they had reached Venusia or Canusium, can claim precedence over us or boast that they are more of a defence to the State than we are. [11] But you will find both in them and in us good and gallant soldiers, only we shall be still more eager to serve our country because it will be through your kindness that we shall have been ransomed and restored to our fatherland. You have enlisted men of all ages and of every condition; I hear that eight thousand slaves are armed. [12] Our number is no less, and it will not cost more to ransom us than it did to purchase them, but if I were to compare ourselves as soldiers with them, I should be offering an insult to the name of Roman. [13] I should think, senators, that in deciding upon a matter like this, you should also take into consideration, if you are disposed to be too severe, to what sort of an enemy you are going to abandon us. [14] Is it to a Pyrrhus, who treated his prisoners as though they were his guests? Is it not rather to a barbarian, and what is worse, a Carthaginian, of whom it is difficult to judge whether he is more rapacious or more cruel? [15] Could you see the chains, the squalor, the disgusting appearance of your fellow-citizens, the sight would, I am sure, move you no less than if, on the other hand, you beheld your legions lying scattered over the plains of Cannae. [16] You can behold the anxiety and the tears of our kinsmen as they stand in the vestibule of your House and await your reply. If they are in such anxiety and suspense about us and about those who are not here, what, think you, must be the feelings of the men themselves whose life and liberty are at stake? [17] Why, good heavens! even if Hannibal, contrary to his nature, chose to be kind to us, we should still think life not worth living after you had decided that we did not deserve to be ransomed. [18] Years ago the prisoners who were released by Pyrrhus without ransom returned to Rome, but they returned in company with the foremost men of the State who had been sent to effect their ransom. Am I to return to my native country as a citizen not thought worth three hundred coins? Each of us has his own feelings, senators. [19] I know that my life and person are at stake, but I dread more the peril to my good name, in case we depart condemned and repulsed by you; for men will never believe that you grudged the cost."
