Ab urbe condita

safe keeping. Next, the lictors were ordered to retire from the consuls, who were then stripped of

their paludamenta. This aroused such deep commiseration amongst those who a short time ago had been cursing them and saying that they ought to be surrendered and scourged, that every man, forgetting his own plight, turned away his eyes from such an outrage upon the majesty of state as from a spectacle too horrible to behold.

The consuls were the first to be sent, little more than half-clothed, under the yoke, then each in the order of his rank was exposed to the same disgrace, and finally, the legionaries one after another.