“If other nations delight in remembering the days of national triumphs,” says Wilhelm Ihne, “and in celebrating the memory of victories by which they feel their strength was increased and their pride gratified, the greatness of the Roman people is shown much more by their keeping continually before their eyes the evil days when the god of battles was unfavourable to them, and by celebrating the anniversaries of their defeats, in a certain degree, as days of national humiliation. The day of the Allia and the day of Cannæ stood before the eye of the Roman in more burning colours than the day of the victory of Zama. But by the side of those names there was yet a third in the list of evil days--a name which was more painful than any other to the proud Roman, because the feeling of national disgrace and humiliation could not be separated from it; it was the name of the Caudine Pass. At the Allia and at Cannæ thousands fell in open battle; at Caudium four legions agreed to purchase life and freedom by the sacrifice of military honour, and the Roman people, when they refused to ratify the agreement, covered themselves with a load of infamy, from which no sophistry could free them, even in their own conscience.”[f] [Sidenote: [321-315 B.C.]] The senate having met to consider of the peace, the consul Publilius called on Sp. Postumius to give his opinion. He rose with downcast looks, and advised that himself and all who had sworn to the treaty should be delivered up to the Samnites, as having deceived them, by making a treaty without the consent of the Roman people, and a fresh army be levied, and the war renewed; and though there was hardly a senator who had not a son or some other relative among the hostages, it was resolved to do as he advised. Postumius and his companions were taken bound to Caudium; the fetial led them before the tribunal of Pontius, and made the surrender of them in the solemn form. Postumius, as he concluded, struck his knee against the fetial’s thigh, and drove him off, crying, “I am now a Samnite, thou an ambassador: I thus violate the law of nations; ye may justly now resume the war.” Pontius replied with dignity: he treated this act of religious hypocrisy as a childish manœuvre; he told the Romans that if they wished to renounce the treaty with any show of justice, they should place their legions as they were when it was made; but their present conduct he said was base and unworthy, and he would not accept such a surrender as this, or let them thus hope to avert the anger of the gods. He then ordered Postumius and the other Romans to be unbound and dismissed.