The people, rushing in crowds to the senate-house, compelled Lesius to assemble a senate, and openly threatened the nobles, who had now for a long time absented themselves from the public deliberations, that unless they attended the meeting of the senate, they would go round to their houses and drag them all before the public by force. The fear of this procured the magistrate a full senate. Here, while the rest contended for sending ambassadors to the Roman generals, Vibius Virrius, who had been the instigator of the revolt from the Romans, on being asked his opinion, observed, that "those persons who spoke of sending ambassadors, and of peace, and a surrender, did not bear in mind either what they would do if they had the Romans in their power, or what they themselves must expect to suffer. What! do you think," says he, "that your surrender will be like that in which formerly we placed ourselves and every thing belonging to us at the disposal of the Romans, in order that we might obtain assistance from them against the Samnites? Have you already forgotten at what a juncture we revolted from the Romans, and what were their circumstances? Have you forgotten how at the time of the revolt we put to death, with torture and indignity, their garrison, which might have been sent out? How often, and with determined hostility, we have sallied out against them when besieging us, and assaulted their camp? How we invited Hannibal to come and cut them off? And how most recently we sent him hence to lay siege to Rome? But come, retrace on the other hand what they have done in hostility towards us, that you may learn therefrom what you have to hope for. When a foreign enemy was in Italy, and that enemy Hannibal; when the flame of war was kindled in every quarter; disregarding every other object, disregarding even Hannibal himself, they sent two consuls with two consular armies to lay siege to Capua. This is the second year, that, surrounded with lines and shut up within our walls, they consume us by famine, having suffered in like manner with ourselves the extremest dangers and the severest hardships, having frequently had their troops slain near their rampart and trenches, and at last having been almost deprived of their camp. But I pass over these matters. It has been usual, even from of old, to suffer dangers and hardships in besieging an enemy's city. The following is a proof of their animosity and bitter hatred. Hannibal assaulted their camp with an immense force of horse and foot, and took a part of it. By so great a danger they were not in the least diverted from the siege. Crossing the Vulturnus, he laid waste the territory of Cales with fire. Such calamities inflicted upon their allies had no effect in calling them off. He ordered his troops to march in hostile array to the very city of Rome. They despised the tempest which threatened them in this case also. Crossing the Anio, he pitched his camp three miles from the city, and lastly, came up to the very walls and gates. He gave them to understand that he would take their city from them, unless they gave up Capua. But they did not give it up. Wild beasts, impelled by headlong fury and rage, you may divert from their object to bring assistance to those belonging to them, if you attempt to approach their dens and their young. The Romans could not be diverted from Capua by the blockade of Rome, by their wives and children, whose lamentations could almost be heard from this place, by their altars, their hearths, the temples of their gods, and the sepulchres of their ancestors profaned and violated. So great was their avidity to bring us to punishment, so insatiable their thirst for drinking our blood. Nor, perhaps, without reason. We too would have done the same had the opportunity been afforded us. Since, however, the gods have thought proper to determine it otherwise, though I ought not to shrink from death, while I am free, while I am master of myself, I have it in my power, by a death not only honourable but mild, to escape the tortures and indignities which the enemy hope to inflict upon me. I will not see Appius Claudius and Quintus Fulvius in the pride and insolence of victory, nor will I be dragged in chains through Rome as a spectacle in a triumph, that afterwards in a dungeon, or tied to a stake, after my back has been lacerated with stripes, I may place my neck under a Roman axe. I will neither see my native city demolished and burnt, nor the matrons, virgins, and free-born youths of Campania dragged to constupration. Alba, from which they themselves derived their origin, they demolished from her foundations, that there might remain no trace of their rise and extraction, much less can I believe they will spare Capua, towards which they bear a more rancorous hatred than towards Carthage. For such of you, therefore, as have a mind to yield to fate, before they behold such horrors, a banquet is furnished and prepared at my house. When satiated with wine and food, the same cup which shall have been given to me shall be handed round to them. That potion will rescue our bodies from torture, our minds from insult, our eyes and ears from seeing and hearing all those cruelties and indignities which await the vanquished. There will be persons in readiness who will throw our lifeless bodies upon a large pile kindled in the court-yard of the house. This is the only free and honourable way to death. Our very enemies will admire our courage, and Hannibal will learn that those whom he deserted and betrayed were brave allies."
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More of those who heard this speech of Virrius approved of the proposal contained in it, than had strength of mind to execute what they approved. The greater part of the senate being not without hopes that the Romans, whose clemency they had frequently had proof of in many wars, would be exorable by them also, decreed and sent ambassadors to surrender Capua to the Romans. About twenty-seven senators, following Vibius Virrius to his home, partook of the banquet with him; and after having, as far as they could, withdrawn their minds, by means of wine, from the perception of the impending evil, all took the poison. They then rose from the banquet, after giving each other their right hands, and taking a last embrace, mingling their tears for their own and their country's fate; some of them remained, that they might be burned upon the same pile, and the rest retired to their homes. Their veins being filled in consequence of what they had eaten, and the wine they drank, rendered the poison less efficacious in expediting death; and accordingly, though the greater part of them languished the whole of that night and part of the following day, all of them, however, breathed their last before the gates were opened to the enemy. The following day the gate of Jupiter, which faced the Roman camp, was opened by order of the proconsul, when one legion and two squadrons of allies marched in at it, under the command of Caius Fulvius, lieutenant-general. When he had taken care that all the arms and weapons to be found in Capua should be brought to him; having placed guards at all the gates to prevent any one's going or being sent out, he seized the Carthaginian garrison, and ordered the Campanian senators to go into the camp to the Roman generals. On their arrival they were all immediately thrown into chains, and ordered to lay before the quaestor an account of all the gold and silver they had. There were seventy pounds of gold, and three thousand two hundred of silver. Twenty-five of the senators were sent to Cales, to be kept in custody, and twenty-eight to Teanum; these being the persons by whose advice principally it appeared that the revolt from the Romans had taken place.
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Fulvius and Claudius were far from being agreed as to the punishment of the Campanian senators. Claudius was disposed to grant their prayer for pardon, but Fulvius was more inclined to severity. Appius, therefore, was for referring the entire disposal of the question to the Roman senate. He thought it right also, that the fathers should have the opportunity of asking them whether any of the Latin confederates, or of the municipal towns, had taken part in these designs, and whether they had derived any assistance from them in the war. Fulvius, on the contrary, urged that they ought by no means to run the hazard of having the minds of faithful allies harassed by doubtful accusations, and subjected to informers who never cared at all what they did or what they said. For this reason he said that he should prevent and put a stop to any such inquiry. After this conversation they separated; Appius not doubting but that his colleague, though he expressed himself so warmly, would, nevertheless, wait for a letter from Rome, in an affair of such magnitude. But Fulvius, fearing that his designs would be frustrated by that very means, dismissed his council, and commanded the military tribunes and the praefects of the allies to give notice to two thousand chosen horsemen to be in readiness at the third trumpet. Setting out for Teanum with this body of cavalry, he entered the gate at break of day, and proceeded direct to the forum; and a number of people having flocked together at the first entrance of the horsemen, he ordered the Sidicinian magistrate to be summoned; when he desired him to bring forth the Campanians whom he had in custody. These were all accordingly brought forth, scourged, and beheaded. He then proceeded at full speed to Cales; where, when he had taken his seat on the tribunal, and while the Campanians, who had been brought forth, were being bound to the stake, an express arrived from Rome, and delivered to him a letter from Caius Calpurnius, the praetor, and a decree of the senate. A murmur immediately pervaded the whole assembly, beginning at the tribunal, that the entire question respecting the Campanians was referred to the decision of the fathers, and Fulvius, suspecting this to be the case, took the letter, and without opening it put it into his bosom, and then commanded the crier to order the lictor to do his duty. Thus punishment was inflicted on those also who were at Cales. The letter was then read, together with the decree of the senate, when it was too late to prevent the business which was already executed, and which had been accelerated by every means to prevent its being obstructed. When Fulvius was now rising from his seat, Jubellius Taurea, a Campanian making his way through the middle of the city and the crowd, called upon him by name, and when Flaccus, who wondered greatly what he could want, had resumed his seat, he said, "Order me also to be put to death, that you may be able to boast, that a much braver man than yourself has been put to death by you." Fulvius at first said, that the man could not certainly be in his senses, then, that he was restrained by a decree of the senate, even though he might wish it, when Jubellius exclaimed "Since, after the capture of my country, and the loss of my relations and friends, after having killed, with my own hand, my wife and children to prevent their suffering any indignity, I am not allowed even to die in the same manner as these my countrymen, let a rescue be sought in courage from this hated existence." So saying, he thrust a sword, which he had concealed under his garment, right through his breast, and fell lifeless at the general's feet.
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