Ab urbe condita

They could have reached Capua before nightfall, but not knowing how their allies would receive them, and kept back by a feeling of shame, they all flung themselves, destitute of everything, on the sides of the road near Capua.

As soon as news of this reached the place, a proper feeling of compassion for their allies got the better of the inborn disdain of the Campanian;

they immediately sent to the consuls their own insignia of office, the fasces and the lictors, and the soldiers they generously supplied with arms, horses, clothes, and provisions.

As they entered Capua the senate and people came out in a body to meet them, showed them all due hospitality, and paid them all the consideration to which as individuals and as members of an allied state they were entitled.

But all the courtesies and kindly looks and cheerful greetings of their allies were powerless to evoke a single word or even to make them lift up their eyes and look in the face the friends who were trying to comfort them.

To such an extent did feelings of shame make their gloom and

despondency all the heavier, and constrain them to shun the converse and society of men.

The next day some young nobles were commissioned to escort them to the frontier. On their return they were summoned to the Senate-house, and in answer to inquiries on the part of the older senators they reported that they seemed to be much more gloomy and depressed than the day before;