Book 34
6
Hannibal was in Italy; he had won the victory of Cannae; he was now master of Tarentum, Arpi and Capua; there was every likelihood that he would bring his army up to Rome. Our allies had fallen away from us, we had no reserves from which to make good our losses, no seamen to render our navy effective, and no money in the treasury. We had to arm the slaves and they were bought from their owners on condition that the purchase money should be paid at the end of the war; the contractors undertook to supply corn and everything else required for the war, to be paid for at the same date. We gave up our slaves to act as rowers in numbers proportionate to our assessment and placed all our gold and silver at the service of the State, the senators setting the example. Widows and minors invested their money in the public funds and a law was passed fixing the maximum of gold and silver coinage which we were to keep in our houses. Was it at such a crisis as this that the matrons were so given to luxury that the Oppian Law was needed to restrain them, when, owing to their being in mourning, the sacrificial rites of Ceres had been intermitted and the senate in consequence ordered the mourning to be terminated in thirty days? Who does not see that the poverty and wretched condition of the citizens, every one of whom had to devote his money to the needs of the commonwealth, were the real enactors of that law which was to remain in force as long as the reason for its enactment remained in force? If every decree made by the senate and every order made by the people to meet the emergency is to remain in force for all time, why are we repaying to private citizens the sums they advanced? Why are we making public contracts on the basis of immediate payment? Why are slaves not being purchased to serve as soldiers, and each of us giving up our slaves to serve as rowers as we did then?
