§22.60.14quid, si moriendum pro patria esset, faceretis? quinquaginta milia civium sociorumque circa vos eo ipso die caesa iacent.
What would you do, if you had to die for your country? Fifty thousand of your fellow citizens and allies lie slain around you on that very day.
si tot exempla virtutis non movent, nihil umquam movebit; si tanta clades vilem vitam non fecit, nulla faciet.
If so many examples of courage do not move you, nothing ever will; if so great a disaster has not made life cheap to you, none will.
liberi atque incolumes desiderate patriam; §22.60.15immo desiderate, dum patria est, dum cives eius estis: sero nunc desideratis, deminuti capite, abalienati iure civium, servi Carthaginiensium facti.
Long for your country while you are free and unharmed; nay rather, long for it while it is your country, while you are its citizens: now you long for it too late, deprived of your status, alienated from the rights of citizens, made slaves of the Carthaginians.
§22.60.16pretio redituri estis eo, unde ignavia ac nequitia abistis? P. Sempronium civem vestrum non audistis arma capere ac sequi se iubentem; Hannibalem post paulo audistis castra prodi et arma tradi iubentem.
Are you to return for a price to that place from which you departed through cowardice and wickedness? You did not listen to your fellow citizen Publius Sempronius when he ordered you to take up arms and follow him; you listened to Hannibal shortly after when he ordered the camp to be betrayed and arms to be surrendered.
§22.60.17quamquamquid ego ignaviam istorum accuso, cum scelus possim accusare? non modo enim sequi recusarunt bene monentem, sed obsistere ac retinere conati sunt, ni strictis gladiis viri fortissimi inertis summovissent.
And yet why do I accuse the cowardice of these men, when I can accuse their crime? For not only did they refuse to follow him who gave good advice, but they even tried to withstand and hold him back, had not the bravest men with drawn swords cleared away those inactive ones.
prius, inquam, P. Sempronio per civium agmen quam per hostium fuit erumpendum.
First, I say, Publius Sempronius had to break through a line of fellow citizens before he did through that of the enemy.
§22.60.18hos cives patria desideret? quorum si ceteri similes fuissent, neminem hodie ex iis, qui ad Cannas pugnaverunt, civem haberet.
Should the country long for these citizens? If the rest had been like them, she would today have no citizen from among those who fought at Cannae.
§22.60.19ex milibus septem armatorum sescenti extiterunt, qui erumpere auderent, qui in patriam liberi atque armati redirent, neque his sescentis hostes obstitere:
Out of seven thousand armed men, six hundred stood forth who dared to break through, who returned to their country free and armed; and the enemy did not block these six hundred.
§22.60.20quam tutum iter duarum prope legionum agmini futurum censetis fuisse? haberetis hodie viginti milia armatorum Canusii fortia fidelia, patres conscripti.
How safe a journey do you think it would have been for a column of nearly two legions? You would have today, conscript fathers, twenty thousand brave and faithful armed men at Canusium.
nunc autem quem ad modum hi boni fidelesque — nam fortes ne ipsi quidem dixerint — cives esse possunt?
But now, how can these be good and faithful—for brave, not even they themselves would say—citizens?
§22.60.21nisi quis credere potest adfuisse erumpentibus, qui, ne erumperent, obsistere conati sunt, aut non invidere eos cum incolumitati tum gloriae illorum per virtutem partae, cum sibi timorem ignaviamque servitutis ignominiosae causam esse sciant.
Unless anyone can believe that they aided those who broke through, who tried to block them so that they might not break through, or that they do not envy both the safety and the glory of those men won through courage, since they know that fear and cowardice are to themselves the cause of an ignominious slavery.
§22.60.22maluerunt in tentoriis latentes simul lucem atque hostem expectare, cum silentio noctis erumpendi occasio esset.
They preferred to wait for the light and the enemy at the same time, lurking in their tents, although in the silence of the night there was an opportunity for breaking through.
atenim ad erumpendum e castris defuit animus, ad tutanda fortiter castra animum habuerunt; dies noctesque aliquot obsessi vallum armis, §22.60.23se ipsi tutati vallo sunt; tandem ultima ausi passique, cum omnia subsidia vitae deessent adfectisque fame viribus arma iam sustinere nequirent, necessitatibus magis humanis quam armis victi sunt.
But indeed, courage was lacking for breaking through from the camp, yet they had courage for bravely defending the camp; besieged for some days and nights, they defended the rampart with arms, and themselves by the rampart; at last, having dared and suffered the extreme, when all resources of life failed and their strength, weakened by hunger, could no longer support their weapons, they were conquered by human necessities rather than by arms.
§22.60.24orto sole hostis ad vallum accessit; ante secundam horam, nullam fortunam certaminis experti, tradiderunt arma ac se ipsos.
At sunrise the enemy approached the rampart; before the second hour, having experienced no fortune of battle, they surrendered their arms and themselves.
§22.60.25haec vobis istorum per biduum militia fuit.
This was the military service of these men for two days.
cum in acie stare ac pugnare decuerat, in castra refugerunt; cum pro vallo pugnandum erat, castra tradiderunt, neque in acie neque in castris utiles.
When they ought to have stood in the battle line and fought, they fled back into the camp; when they had to fight in front of the rampart, they surrendered the camp, useful neither in the line nor in the camp.
§22.60.26et vos redimamus? cum erumpere e castris oportet, cunctamini ac manetis; cum manere et castra tutari armis necesse est, et castra et arma et vos ipsos traditis hosti.
And are we to ransom you? When you ought to break through from the camp, you hesitate and remain; when it is necessary to remain and defend the camp with arms, you surrender both camp and arms and yourselves to the enemy.
§22.60.27ego non magis istos redimendos, patres conscripti, censeo, quam illos dedendos Hannibali, qui per medios hostis e castris eruperunt ac per summam virtutem se patriae restituerunt. ”
I do not think, conscript fathers, that these men should be ransomed any more than that those who broke through the camp through the midst of the enemy and by the highest courage restored themselves to their country should be surrendered to Hannibal.