Book 9
1.1
TheThe Disaster at Caudium. following year (321 B.C.) was rendered memorable by the disaster which befell the Romans at Caudium and the capitulation which they made there.
1.2
T. Veturius Calvinus and Spurius Postumius were the consuls. The Samnites had for their captain-general that year C. Pontius, the son of Herennius, the ablest statesman they possessed, whilst the son
1.3
was their foremost soldier and commander. When the envoys who had been sent with the terms of surrender returned from their fruitless mission, Pontius made the following speech in the Samnite council: “Do not suppose that this mission has been barren of results.
1.4
We have gained this much by it, whatever measure of divine wrath we may have incurred by our violation of treaty obligations has now been atoned for. I am perfectly certain that all those deities whose will it was that we should he reduced to the necessity of making the restitution which was demanded under the terms of the treaty, have viewed with displeasure the haughty contempt with which the Romans have treated our concessions.
1.5
What more could we have done to placate the wrath of heaven or soften the resentment of men than we have done?
1.6
The property of the enemy, which we considered ours by the rights of war, we have restored; the author of the war, whom we could not surrender alive, we gave up after he had paid his debt to nature, and lest any taint of guilt should remain with us we carried his possessions to Rome.
