Their fears and affection for their kindred had brought the women also with the crowd of men in the forum.

Witnesses being excluded, the matter began to be discussed in the senate.

There being a difference of opinion, and some advising that they should be ransomed at the public charge, others, that the state should be put to no expense, but that they should not be prevented redeeming themselves at their own cost; and that those who had not the money at present should receive a loan from the public coffer, and security given to the people by their sureties and properties; Titus Manlius Torquatus, a man of primitive, and, as some considered, over-rigorous severity, being asked his opinion, is reported thus to have spoken: "Had the deputies confined themselves to making a request, in behalf of those who are in the hands of the enemy, that they might be ransomed, I should have briefly given my opinion, without inveighing against any one.

For what else would have been necessary but to admonish you, that you ought to adhere to the custom handed down from your ancestors, a precedent indispensable to military discipline.

But now, since they have almost boasted of having surrendered themselves to the enemy, and have claimed to be preferred, not only to those who were captured by the enemy in the field, but to those also who came to Venusia and Canusium, and even to the consul Terentius himself; I will not suffer you to remain in ignorance of things which were done there.