History of Rome

​While these things were being said and heard, and the Roman name was almost despaired of in the council of the faithful allies, ​Ofillius Calavius, son of Ovius, a man distinguished by birth and deeds, and at that time also venerable for his age, is said to have declared that the matter stood far otherwise:

​that that obstinate silence, those eyes fixed upon the ground, those ears deaf to all consolations, and that shame of beholding the light, were indications of a mind arousing a great mass of wraths from the depths of the soul;

​that either he was ignorant of the Roman character, or that silence would shortly arouse tearful cries and groans for the Samnites, and the memory of the Caudine peace would be considerably more sorrowful for the Samnites than for the Romans;

​for each of them would keep his own spirit wherever they should meet; the Caudine passes would not be everywhere for the Samnites. Already in Rome, too, their own infamous disaster was known.

​At first they heard that they were besieged; then the news of the ignominious peace was sadder than that of the danger.

​At the report of the siege, a levy had begun to be held; then the preparation of auxiliary troops was dismissed, after they received the news of a surrender so foully made, and immediately, without any public decree, a consensus was reached on every form of mourning. The shops around the forum were closed, ​and a suspension of public business in the forum began spontaneously before it was proclaimed; the broad purple stripes and golden rings were laid aside;

​the state was almost more sorrowful than the army itself, and was angry not only with the leaders, authors, and sponsors of the peace, but even hated the innocent soldiers and declared they should not be received into the city or into homes.

​This excitement of minds was broken by the arrival of the army, pitiful even to the angry. For they did not enter the city like men returning unexpectedly safe to their country, ​but with the habit and countenance of captives, entering late into the city; and each so hid himself in his own house that on the next and following days none of them wished to look upon the forum or the public.

​The consuls, shut up in private, did nothing in their magisterial capacity, except what was wrung from them by a decree of the senate, namely, to name a dictator for the purpose of holding the elections. They named Quintus Fabius Ambustus, ​and Publius Aelius Paetus as master of the horse;

​these having been created with some defect, Marcus Aemilius Papus was substituted as dictator, and Lucius Valerius Flaccus as master of the horse. Nor were the elections held by them; and because the people were weary of all the magistrates of that year, the matter returned to an interregnum. The interreges were Quintus Fabius Maximus and Marcus Valerius Corvus.

​The latter created as consuls Quintus Publilius Philo, for the third time, and Lucius Papirius Cursor, for the second time, with the undoubted consensus of the state, because there were no more illustrious leaders at that time.