1When he had finished, at once a tearful cry was raised by the crowd which was in the comitium, and they stretched out their hands towards the Curia, begging that their children, brothers and kinsmen be given back to them. 2Fear and necessity had also mingled women with the crowd of men in the forum. 2The senate, with outsiders removed, began to be consulted. 3There, as opinions varied, and some proposed that they be ransomed at public expense, others that no public expense should be incurred, but that they should not be prevented from being ransomed from private funds, and that if any lacked the money at present, it should be lent from the treasury and the people secured by sureties and property, then Titus Manlius Torquatus, a man of old-fashioned and, as most would think, excessively harsh severity, when asked his opinion, is said to have spoken thus: 'If the envoys had merely asked, on behalf of those in the enemy's power, that they be ransomed, I should have stated my opinion briefly, without attacking any of them; 7for what else would you need but to be reminded to keep the custom handed down by your fathers, with an example necessary for military discipline?
7But now, since they have almost boasted of having surrendered to the enemy, and have thought it right to be preferred not only to those captured by the enemy in battle, but even to those who reached Venusia and Canusium, and to the consul Gaius Terentius himself, I will not allow you, conscript fathers, to be ignorant of anything that was done there. 8And I wish that I were saying these things, which I am about to say before you, at Canusium before the army itself, the best witness of each man's cowardice and courage, or that at least Publius Sempronius alone were here; had these men followed him as their leader, they would today be soldiers in a Roman camp, not captives in the enemy's power.
9But when, with the enemy tired from fighting, glad besides of their victory, and most of them returned to their own camp, they had had the night free for breaking out, and seven thousand armed men could have broken out even through a dense enemy, they neither attempted to do it by themselves nor were willing to follow another. 10For almost the whole night Publius Sempronius Tuditanus did not cease warning and urging them, while the small number of enemies around the camp allowed it, while there was quiet and silence, while night could cover the attempt, to follow him as their leader: before dawn they could reach safe places, the cities of allies.
11If, as within our grandfathers' memory Publius Decius, a military tribune in Samnium, if, as when we were young men in the first Punic war Calpurnius Flamma said to three hundred volunteers, as he led them to seize a hillock situated in the midst of the enemy, "Let us die, soldiers, and by our death rescue the surrounded legions from siege," if Publius Sempronius had said this, I for my part should not count you either men or Romans, if no one had come forward as a companion in such courage. 13He shows you a road leading no more to glory than to safety; 13he brings you back home to your country, to your parents, to your wives and children.
13To save yourselves you lack the courage: what would you do if you had to die for your country? 14Fifty thousand citizens and allies lie around you, slain on that very day. 14If so many examples of courage do not move you, nothing ever will; 14if so great a disaster has not made life cheap, none will. 14Long for your country while you are free and unharmed; 15rather, long for it while it is your country, while you are its citizens: it is too late to long for it now, when you have lost your civil status, been stripped of the rights of citizens, and become slaves of the Carthaginians.
16Are you to return for a price to the place you left through cowardice and worthlessness? 16You did not listen to Publius Sempronius, your fellow citizen, when he ordered you to take up arms and follow him; 16a little later you listened to Hannibal when he ordered the camp to be betrayed and the arms handed over. 17And yet why do I accuse these men of cowardice, when I could accuse them of crime? 17For they not only refused to follow the man who gave them good advice, but tried to stand in his way and hold him back, had not the bravest men drawn their swords and driven the cowards off.
17Publius Sempronius, I say, had to break out through a column of citizens before he broke through one of enemies. 18Should our country long for such citizens as these? 18If the rest had been like them, it would today have not a single citizen among those who fought at Cannae. 19Of seven thousand armed men, six hundred came forward who dared to break out, who returned to their country free and armed, nor did the enemy stop these six hundred: how safe do you think the road would have been for a column of almost two legions? 20You would today have twenty thousand armed men at Canusium, brave and loyal, conscript fathers.
20But now, how can these men be good and loyal citizens (for brave not even they themselves would claim to be)? 21Unless anyone can believe that those who tried to stop them breaking out stood by those who broke out, or that they do not envy them both their safety and the glory won by their courage, when they know that their own fear and cowardice are the cause of their shameful slavery. 22They preferred to lurk in their tents and wait for daylight and the enemy together, when there was a chance of breaking out in the silence of the night. 22But, you will say, though they lacked the courage to break out of the camp, they had the courage to defend the camp bravely; 22besieged for several days and nights, they protected the rampart with their arms and themselves with the rampart; 23at last, having dared and endured the utmost, when every means of supporting life was lacking and, their strength weakened by hunger, they could no longer hold up their arms, they were conquered by human necessities rather than by arms.
24At sunrise the enemy approached the rampart; 24before the second hour, without trying the fortune of a fight at all, they handed over their arms and themselves. 25This was these men's military service for you over two days. 25When they ought to have stood in the line and fought, they fled back to the camp; 25when they had to fight in front of the rampart, they surrendered the camp, useful neither in the battle line nor in the camp. 26And are we to ransom you? 26When you ought to break out of the camp, you hesitate and stay; 26when it is necessary to stay and defend the camp with arms, you hand over camp, arms and yourselves to the enemy.
27For my part, conscript fathers, I no more think these men should be ransomed than that those should be handed over to Hannibal who broke out of the camp through the midst of the enemy and with the highest courage restored themselves to their country.'