And now the Romans, having sought many times in vain to break forth, and being now destitute of everything, sent ambassadors to the Samnites to seek peace, and, if peace were not given, to challenge the enemy to battle. To these Pontius made answer, "Since ye will not confess your plight, prisoners though ye be, I will send you under the yoke without arms, each having one garment only. As to the conditions of peace, they shall be equal and right. Ye shall depart from the land of the Samnites, and take away your colonies; and hereafter both Romans and Samnites shall live under their own laws. If these conditions please the Consuls, I will make a treaty with them; if they please them not, return not hither again." When this message was brought back there arose a general lamentation; for it seemed better to die than to suffer such disgrace. And when the Consuls knew not what to say, Lucius Lentulus, being first of the lieutenants, both in respect of valour and of the honours which he had received, then spake: "Consuls, I have often heard from my father that he only gave counsel to the Senate that they should not ransom their country for gold, and that he did this because the Gauls had not enclosed the capital, and that therefore they might sally forth, not indeed without danger, yet without certainty of destruction. I also would give like advice this day if we could come near our enemies to fight with them. But seeing this may not be, and that if this army be destroyed, Rome is destroyed with it (for how can an unarmed multitude defend it?) my counsel is that we accept these conditions. So shall we deliver our country, not indeed by our death, yet by our disgrace."