§22.54.1eo tempore, quo haec Canusii agebantur Venusiam ad consulem ad quattuor milia et quingenti pedites equitesque, qui sparsi fuga per agros fuerant pervenere. §22.54.2eos omnes Venusini per familias benigne accipiendos curandosque cum divisissent, in singulos equites togas et tunicas et quadrigatos nummos quinos vicenos et pediti denos et arma, quibus deerant, dederunt, §22.54.3ceteraque publice ac privatim hospitaliter facta certatumque, ne a muliere Canusina populus Uenusinus officiis vinceretur. §22.54.4sed gravius onus Busae multitudo faciebat.
At the time when these things were being done at Canusium, about four thousand five hundred infantry and cavalry, who had been scattered through the fields in flight, reached the consul at Venusia. The Venusians, having distributed them all among their families to be kindly received and cared for, gave to each cavalryman a toga, a tunic, and twenty-five quadrigati coins, and to each infantryman ten, and arms to those who lacked them; and other hospitable acts were performed both publicly and privately, and there was a rivalry lest the people of Venusia should be surpassed in kindness by the woman of Canusium. But the great number made the burden heavier for Busa.
et iam ad decem milia hominum erant; Appiusque et Scipio, §22.54.5postquam incolumem esse alterum consulem acceperunt, nuntium extemplo mittunt, quantae secum peditum equitumque copiae essent, sciscitatumque simul utrum Venusiam adduci exercitum an manere iuberet Canusi. §22.54.6Varro ipse Canusium copias traduxit.
And now they were up to ten thousand men; and Appius and Scipio, after they received word that the other consul was safe, immediately sent a messenger to ask how great a force of infantry and cavalry was with them, and at the same time to inquire whether he ordered the army to be brought to Venusia or to remain at Canusium. Varro himself transferred his forces to Canusium.
et iam aliqua species consularis exercitus erat, moenibusque se certe, etsi non armis, ab hoste videbantur defensuri. §22.54.7Romam ne has quidem reliquias superesse civium sociorumque, sed occidione occisum cum ducibus exercitum deletasque omnes copias allatum fuerat. §22.54.8numquam salva urbe tantum pavoris tumultusque intra moenia Romana fuit.
And now there was some appearance of a consular army, and they seemed likely to defend themselves from the enemy, if not by arms, at least certainly by walls. To Rome, it had been reported that not even these remnants of citizens and allies survived, but that the army had been utterly destroyed along with its generals and all the forces annihilated. Never, while the city was safe, was there so much panic and confusion within the Roman walls.
itaque succumbam oneri neque adgrediar narrare, quae edissertando minora vero faciam.
Therefore I shall yield to the burden and not attempt to narrate what I should make less than the truth by describing in detail.
consule exercituque ad Trasumennum priore anno amisso, §22.54.9non vulnus super vulnus, sed multiplex clades, cum duobus consulibus duo consulares exercitus amissi nuntiabantur, nec ulla iam castra Romana nec ducem nec militem esse; §22.54.10Hannibalis Apuliam, Samnium ac iam prope totam Italiam factam.
After the consul and the army were lost at Trasumennus the previous year, it was not wound upon wound, but a manifold disaster that was reported—two consular armies lost with two consuls, and that there was now no Roman camp, no general, and no soldier; that Apulia, Samnium, and now almost all Italy had become Hannibal's.
nulla profecto alia gens tanta mole cladis non obruta esset. §22.54.11compares cladem ad Aegates insulas Carthaginiensium proelio navali acceptam, qua fracti Sicilia ac Sardinia cessere et vectigalis ac stipendiarios fieri se passi sunt, aut pugnam adversam in Africa, cui postea hic ipse Hannibal succubuit: nulla ex parte conparandae sunt, nisi quod minore animo latae sunt.
Surely no other nation would not have been overwhelmed by such a mass of disaster. You may compare the disaster of the Carthaginians suffered in the naval battle at the Aegates islands, by which broken they yielded Sicily and Sardinia and suffered themselves to become tributary and taxpayers, or the adverse battle in Africa, to which afterwards this very Hannibal succumbed: they are in no way to be compared, except that they were borne with less courage.