1The envoys of the captives were granted an audience of the senate by the dictator. 1Their leader said: 'Marcus Junius, and you, conscript fathers, none of us is unaware that captives have never been held cheaper by any state than by ours; 2but unless our own cause pleases us more than is right, no men have ever come into the enemy's power who deserved less to be neglected by you than we. 3For we did not hand over our arms in the battle line through fear, but after we had drawn out the fight almost until nightfall, standing on heaps of slain bodies, we withdrew into the camp; 4for the rest of the day and the following night, though worn out with toil and wounds, we defended the rampart; 5on the next day, when, surrounded by the victorious army, we were cut off from water, and there was no longer any hope of breaking out through the densely packed enemy, and we did not think it a sin that, when fifty thousand men of our army had been slaughtered, some Roman soldier should survive the battle of Cannae, then at last we agreed on a price at which we should be ransomed and released, and handed over to the enemy arms in which there was no longer any help.
7We had heard, too, that our ancestors had ransomed themselves from the Gauls with gold, and that your fathers, most unyielding as they were over terms of peace, had nevertheless sent envoys to Tarentum to ransom captives. 8And yet both the battle at the Allia against the Gauls and that at Heraclea against Pyrrhus were infamous not so much for the losses as for panic and flight. 8Heaps of Roman bodies cover the plains of Cannae, and none of us survive the battle except those in butchering whom the enemy's steel and strength gave out. 9There are also some of our number who were not even in the battle line, but, left to guard the camp, came into the enemy's power when the camp was surrendered.
10For my part I do not envy the fortune or situation of any citizen and fellow soldier, nor would I wish to raise myself by pushing another down: but not even those men, unless there is some reward for swiftness of foot and running, who for the most part fled from the battle unarmed and did not stop before they reached Venusia or Canusium, could rightly put themselves before us or boast that there was more protection for the state in them than in us. 11But you will find them good and brave soldiers, and us still more eager for our country, when we have been ransomed by your kindness and restored to our country.
12You are holding a levy from every age and condition; 12I hear that eight thousand slaves are being armed. 12Our number is no smaller, nor can we be ransomed at a greater price than they are bought for; 12for if I were to compare us with them, I should do injury to the Roman name. 13This too, I would think, you should consider in such a deliberation, conscript fathers, if you now wish to be harsher, which you would be through no fault of ours: to what enemy you are going to abandon us. 14To Pyrrhus, I suppose, who treated his captives as guests? 14Or to a barbarian and a Carthaginian, of whom it can hardly be judged whether he is greedier or crueller?
15If you could see the chains, the squalor, the disfigurement of your fellow citizens, that sight would surely move you no less than if on the other side you beheld your legions laid low on the plains of Cannae. 16You can see the anxiety and tears of our kinsfolk standing in the entrance of the Curia and awaiting your reply. 16When they are so anxious and troubled on behalf of us and of those who are absent, what do you think is the state of mind of those whose life and liberty are at stake? 17If, so help me heaven, Hannibal himself should wish to be gentle towards us, against his own nature, we should still think we had no need of life, since we had seemed to you unworthy to be ransomed.
18Captives once returned to Rome, sent back by Pyrrhus without ransom; 18but they returned with envoys, the leading men of the state, who had been sent to ransom them. 18Am I to return to my country, a citizen not valued at three hundred coins? 19Each man has his own feelings, conscript fathers. 19I know that my life and person are at stake: but the danger to our good name moves me more, that we should go away condemned and rejected by you; 19for men will not believe that you were sparing the expense.'