The History of Rome, Vol. 2

After some time, when they saw the consul’s pavilions being erected and preparations made to throw up defensive works—although they knew it was ridiculous to attempt to fortify a position in their desperate condition, and while nearly every hope was lost—they worked earnestly to build a camp with a rampart near the water. As the enemy hurled insolent taunts at them, they seemed to acknowledge the fruitlessness of their labor with melancholy. The lieutenants and tribunes gathered around the dejected consul without being summoned, as there was no room for consultation or remedy. The soldiers crowded the general’s quarters, demanding the kind of help that it was hardly in the power of the immortal gods themselves to provide.

3. Night fell upon them while they lamented their situation rather than sought a solution. Each urged ideas according to his temperament: one cried out, “Let us go over these road blocks!” Others suggested, “Over the steep slopes, through the woods, any way where arms can be carried! Let us just get to the enemy, whom we have been defeating for nearly thirty years. All places will be level and plain to a Roman fighting against the perfidious Samnite.” Another would say, “Where or by what way can we go? Do we expect to remove the mountains from their foundations? While these cliffs hang over us, by what road will you reach the enemy? Whether armed or unarmed, brave or cowardly, we are all captured and vanquished without distinction. The enemy will not even show us a weapon by which we might die with honor. He will finish the war without moving from his seat.” The night was passed in such talk, thinking of neither food nor rest.

The Samnites, even in their joyous circumstances, could not instantly decide how to act. It was universally agreed that Herennius Pontius, the father of the general, should be consulted by letter. He was now feeble with age and had withdrawn from military and civil life, yet his mind remained sharp. When he heard the Roman armies were shut up at the Caudine Forks, he advised that they should be dismissed immediately and unhurt.