The Romans were caught in such a trap as that from which Cincinnatus had rescued a Roman army many years before. But there was here no Cincinnatus with his stakes, and they were far from Rome. The entrapped army made a desperate effort to escape, attacking the Samnites in the rear, and seeking to force their way up the rugged surrounding hills. They fought in vain. Many of them fell. The Samnite foe pressed them still more closely into the rocky pass. Only the coming of night saved them from total destruction. But escape was impossible. The gorge in front was completely blocked up. The pass in the rear was held by the enemy in force. The flanking hills could hardly have been climbed by an army, even if they had not been occupied. No resource remained to the Romans but to encamp in the broader part of the narrow valley, and there wait in hopeless despair the outcome of their folly. The Samnites could well afford to let them wait. The rear was held by the bulk of their army. The obstacles in front were strongly guarded. Every possible track by which the Romans might try to scale the hills was held. Some desperate attempts to break out were made, but they were easily repulsed. Nothing remained but surrender, or death by famine. One or other of these alternatives had soon to be chosen. A large army, surprised on its march, and confined within a barren pass, could not have subsistence for any long period. Nothing was to be gained by delay, and they might as well yield themselves prisoners of war at once. So the Romans evidently thought, and without delay they put themselves at the mercy of their conquerors. "We yield ourselves your captives," they said, "to do with as you will. Put us all to the sword, if such be your decision; sell us into slavery; or hold us as prisoners until we are ransomed: one thing only we ask, save our bodies, whether living or dead, from all unworthy insults." In this request they forgot the record that Rome had made; forgot how often noble captives had been forced to walk in Roman triumphs and been afterwards slain in cold blood in the common prison; forgot how they had recently refused the rites of burial to the body of a noble Samnite. But Pontius, the Samnite general, was much less of a barbarian than the Romans of that age. He was acquainted with Greek philosophy, had even held conversation, it is said, with Plato, and was not the man to indulge in cruel or insulting acts.