History of Rome

​The defendant transferred the blame from himself to the soldiers: that when they, who had been fiercely demanding battle, were led out into the battle-line—not on the day they wished, because it was late in the day, but on the following day—and drawn up at a favorable time and place, they had not withstood either the reputation or the force of the enemy.

​When all were fleeing in disorder, he too had been carried away by the crowd, just like Varro in the battle of Cannae, and like many other generals.

​But how could he, remaining alone, have been of service to the state, unless his own death was to be a remedy for the public disasters?

​He had not been incautiously led into unfavorable places through lack of provisions, nor had he been surrounded by ambushes while marching with an unexplored column; he had been defeated by open force, by arms, and in a regular battle. He had held neither the minds of his own men nor those of the enemy in his power; each man’s own character produces courage or fear.

​Twice he was accused and a monetary fine was proposed; on the third trial, when witnesses were produced, and besides the fact that he was loaded with all kinds of reproaches, very many sworn witnesses said that the beginning of the flight and terror had originated from the praetor, and that the soldiers had been deserted by him; ​that the soldiers had turned their backs because they believed the general’s fear was not groundless—at this, so great an anger was kindled that the assembly shouted aloud that he must be tried on a capital charge.

​On this matter too, a new dispute arose; for although he had twice proposed a monetary fine, on the third time he said he was prosecuting on a capital charge. ​The colleague tribunes of the plebs, having been appealed to, declared that they would not stand in the way of his prosecuting in whatever manner he preferred—whether by laws or by customs, as had been permitted to him by the custom of the ancestors—until he had passed judgment on the private citizen either of a capital nature or of a monetary fine.

​Then Sempronius declared that he was prosecuting Gnaeus Fulvius for high treason, and requested a day for the assembly from Gaius Calpurnius, the urban praetor.

​Then another hope was tried by the defendant, if his brother Quintus Fulvius could be present at the trial, who was then flourishing both because of the fame of his achievements and because of the near hope of capturing Capua.

​When Fulvius had requested this in a letter written plaintively for his brother’s life, and the senators had denied that it was to the advantage of the state to depart from Capua, ​after the day of the assembly drew near, Gnaeus Fulvius went into exile to Tarquinii. The plebs decreed that this was a lawful exile for him.