Ab urbe condita

May it be in accordance with your will that the legions of Rome under fresh consuls should wage war against the Samnites in the same way in which all wars were waged before we were consuls!”

When he finished speaking, such admiration and pity were felt for him that they could hardly think that it was the same Sp. Postumius who had concluded such a disgraceful peace.

They viewed with the utmost sadness the prospect of such a man suffering at the hands of the enemy such terrible punishment as he was sure to meet with, enraged as they would be at the rupture of the peace.

The whole House expressed in terms of the highest praise their approval of his proposal. They were beginning to vote on the question when two of the tribunes of the plebs, L. Livius and Q. Maelius, entered a protest which they afterwards withdrew.

They argued that the people as a whole would not be discharged from their religious obligation by this surrender unless the Samnites were placed in the same position of advantage which they held at Caudium.

Further, they said they did not deserve any punishment for having saved the Roman army by undertaking to procure peace,[*](Livy evidently assumes that these two tribunes of the plebs were with the army, a most unusual arrangement, as they were supposed to be watching over the interests of the plebs within the walls of Rome. But the whole strength of Rome, i. e., the great majority of the plebeians, were at Caudium, so the presence of all the tribunes in the City might not have been necessary.) and they urged as a final reason that as they, the tribunes, were sacrosanct and their persons inviolable they could not be surrendered to the enemy or exposed to any violence.

To this Postumius replied: “In the meanwhile, surrender us, whom no inviolability protects and whose surrender will violate no man's conscience.

Afterwards you will surrender those “sacrosanct” gentlemen also as soon as their year of office expires, but if you take my advice you will see that before they are surrendered they are scourged in the Forum by way of paying interest for a punishment that will have been delayed.

Why, who is so ignorant of fetial law as not to see that these men are saying this, not because it represents the fact but to prevent their being surrendered?

I do not deny, senators, that where the pledged words of men are held to possess a binding force only second to the sanctions of religion, then such undertakings as we have given are as sacred as formal treaties. But I do say that without the express order of the people nothing can be ratified which can bind the people.