Romans Never Surrender, or do they?

Caudine Forks, Numantia, and the Crisis facing Cotta and Sabinus at BC 5.26-37
CAMWS-SS Emory 2016
Gaius Stern

Not surprisingly the Romans made heroes of those who thought or fought their way to

freedom when surrounded by the enemy by keeping their swords and wits about them, such as

Horatius Cocles at the bridge, Mucius Scaevola under interrogation by Lars Porsenna, or Cloelia

defying the same king. The legendary Regulus similarly duped the Carthaginians when he

denounced a prisoner exchange he had promised to endorse that would have helped Carthage,

and the consuls in command at Caudine Forks preserved Roman honor by persuading the Senate

to reject an unfavorable peace with the Samnites. All of these episodes teach never to surrender

to tyranny and/or lose their freedom; instead the good Roman should prefer to die. Roman

historians repeat many positive proofs of the above where virtue was rewarded and almost never

provide negative examples of cowards who make the wrong choice to hang onto life in disgrace

and suffer for it, creating the deceptive conclusion that Romans never surrendered, when in fact

in several special cases they did. Polybius, Livy, Tacitus, and Dio explained the rise of the

Roman Empire as a logical extension of Roman discipline, nationalism, and the highly

martialized aristocracy that absolutely understood war and tolerated no deviance from that which

was noble or strong, such that even considering surrendering was a disgrace and crime.

Only two negative examples of bad Roman commanders, who tried to save their mens

lives under less than honorable terms, survive, and in the first case the army is not enslaved or

executed, but the Senate condemns the commander, while in the latter, it is a complete failure

that results in the disgrace of the commander and the death of almost all of his men to boot.

Hostilius Mancinus at Numantia in 137 BC and even more so Titurius Sabinus in Gaul in 54 BC,

as rare examples of bad Romans ram home the point that when faced with hopeless odds, one

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should fight to the death or fall on ones sword. Although the motto death before dishonor led to

the loss of many, valuable soldiers, it played a role in conquering the Empire, and those who

tried to save their men by surrendering were repudiated for sullying the name of Rome. The

Senate loudly criticized the few commanders who made the utilitarian choice to save as many

Romans lives as possible, and far from thanking them for saving citizens lives, accused them of

moral weakness because, paradoxically, men who did not accomplish the impossible by

emulating perfectly Horatius Cocles and emerging from the lions den with their honor intact,

were not worth saving.

The moral dilemma facing commanders, who wanted to rescue their countrymen, like

Fabius Maximus and Flamininus, amounts to a paradox, because soldiers threatened by the

enemy who could fight their way out were the type of men worth saving, whereas those

surrounded with no means of escape were supposed to die trying and did not deserve help. This

paradoxical and self-destructive attitude cost the Romans much manpower. All the more

surprisingly, the Senate created and expanded this attitude during two grimmest states of

emergency: right after the Battles of Lake Trasimene (April 217 BC) and Cannae (August 216).

In retrospect, it is a marvel they did not bring down the state during this crisis when the allies

were defecting, and Rome was desperately short of manpower. When Fabius agreed to ransom

some of his countrymen from Hannibal in 217, he was denied state funds and had to pay for

them from his own purse and suffered abuse for so doing. After Cannae, the Senate firmly

declared it would never ransom POWs while the war was still being waged. The war lasted

another 14 years. And yet, even without the thousands of Roman POWs sold into slavery, the

Romans did win the war. Then and only then did they relent and begin to recover their long lost

countrymen. The final surprise, on which I have written much elsewhere, is that the Senate

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intended for the policy to forsake Roman POWs after Cannae to be a temporary measure, but due

to its perceived success in the war against Hannibal, it became a fixed policy of the Roman war

machine to harden the military ethos and to discourage Roman soldiers from ever surrendering.1

In the legendary episodes of Mucius Scaevola and Regulus, honesty during the crisis

could be sacrificed to preserve the Roman state. Mucius Scaevola failed to assassinate Lars

Porsenna but boldly lied that he was the first of 100 Roman nobles sworn to kill him.2 His

successor would succeed on Wednesday, and if not him, then his successor on Thursday.

Terrified at a life threatened by the 99 Roman swords of Damocles, Lars Porsenna made peace

with Rome and released Mucius Scaevola as part of an overture to befriend Rome. Similarly,

Regulus broke his word to endorse the prisoner exchange and instead urged the Romans to press

the war, knowing he would be punished severely. His broken promise would bring him a terrible

end, but he was willing to pay the penalty, as long as Rome benefitted in the end.3

The situation was very different at Caudine Forks, but Livy and his sources have altered

the details far from the original historical event, so that we can only guess at what really

happened. Apparently, during the Second Samnite War (327-04 BC) in 321 BC, the consuls, T.

Veturius Calvinus and Sp. Postumius, accidentally led the Roman army into a trap at Caudine

Forks. The army was surrounded, forced to surrender, and forced to walk under the yoke, and

Rome was forced to accept an unfavorable peace with Samnium. Later the Romans broke the

peace and managed to defeat the Samnites completely, in what is likely to have been a third war,

but the surviving Roman sources describe it as the conclusion of the same war which ended in

304 BC after 23 continuous years.

1
Plutarch on Spartan and arrow selecting virtuous men
2
Liv. Sources of Scaevola
3
In some accounts he claimed that the Carthaginians had already given him slow poison because they were that
treacherous so that he would not long live to enjoy his freedom as the first prisoner exchanged.

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 Livy describes the disgrace of Caudine Forks very thoroughly, revealing a strong

understanding of the Roman military psyche. In his account, the consuls cannot accept the

dishonor of Caudine Forks, so they hit upon a plan to redeem the countrys honor at the expense

of themselves (so they expect) sacrificing themselves much as Regulus would after them.

Postumius proposed that he and his colleague should be sent back to Samnium for agreeing to a

peace they lacked the legal authority to guarantee. Roman honor is saved, and Veturius and

Postumius are sent to their deaths at the hands of the Samnites. However, the Samnites refuse to

accept either this Roman trick or the consuls forfeit lives and send them back, probably hoping

to make the Romans abide by the peace. According to Livy, the war immediately resumed, and

Roman victory eventually followed.

This largely fictitious precedent has a historical descendent in Hostilius Mancinus (cos.

137 BC), and it is very likely that Livys sources revised the events of Caudine Forks based on a

false memory recalled in the Senate itself during the Mancinus crisis. While fighting Numantia,

the army of Mancinus was overwhelmed and forced to surrender and walk under the yoke.

Mancinus salvaged the lives of his men by agreeing to make peace. When he returned to Rome

to present the peace treaty, the Senate rejected it and claimed that he lacked the authority to

guarantee it, la Postumius.4 They ordered him to be turned over to Numantia for punishment,

but like the Samnites in the altered history, the Numantines refused to accept and execute him,

but the war continued until Rome prevailed. The moral was that Romans should never

surrender, and it was better to lose the army than to sully Roman honor.

Much later, when the Gauls rebelled in 54 BC against the recent Roman conquest under

the Divine Julius, the Eburones in NE Gaul persuaded the seasoned co-commander Titurius

Sabinus over the objections of his colleague Aurunculeius Cotta to abandon the safety of
4
Mancinus: Plut. Ti. Gracch.

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their fortress by the false promise of safe passage. Cotta wished to remain in the fortress and

send secretly for help to Labienus or Caesar, but Sabinus prevailed and led the Roman garrison

out of camp into a massacre, from which very few escaped.5 Sabinus thought he could save his

legion like Mancinus, but Cottas choice to go down fighting was the right choice for two

reasons. Obviously, it preserved Roman honor, but secondly and just as importantly, one never

trusts the enemy (all is fair in love and war). Cottas plan may not have saved the garrison, but

he believed they had sufficient supplies and courage to withstand a long siege, and is it turned

out, Sabinus decision led to the deaths of them all and his own dishonor. Sabinuss death and

disgrace somewhat resemble the destiny of Quinctillius Varus at Teutoburger Wald in AD 9, but

even more that of his cavalry officer, Numonius Vala.

Once the battle was lost, Numonius Vala abandoned the infantry and tried to save

himself.6 Velleius calls it a dire example not because it was cowardly, one can argue, but

because it failed. Fortune was avenged, Velleius says. If they had survived, would they not

have been good Romans for fighting their way out? As with Sabinus, condemnation comes

from failure.

Livy also presents as history an apocryphal story that right after Cannae, some patrician

officers among the survivors wished to abandon the lost cause and agreed to hire themselves out

to foreign tyrants, but the future Scipio Africanus, then a military tribune, stopped them. In a

scene reminiscent of the original Brutus compelling Collatinus and Lucretius to avenge Lucretia

over her corpse, Scipio invoked Jupiter Optimus et Maximus to make them stay and defend

5
Caes. Bell. Gal. 5.17-19, 24-37; Liv. Per. 106; Suet. Div. Iul. 25; Flor. 3.10; Dio 39.45, 40.5-6; Eutrop. 6.14; Oros.
6.10.
6
Vell. 2.119.4. Numantius Vala is the diri auctor exempli.

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Rome.7 Desertion is the serious charge, but unlike in the case of Numantius Vala, no subsequent

ignominy befalls the ring leader, L. Caecilius Metellus.

Curiously, Livy creates an inverse relationship between the situations of Mucius Scaevola

and Regulus and those of Postumius, Mancinus, and Calvisius Sabinus. The former are

considered heroes, despite the fact they acted in bad faith, because from a hopeless position they

turn the tables on the enemy; the latter acted in good faith and kept their word with the enemy in

the hopes of saving their men, for which they are considered cowards or fools. Evidently, as

Livy presents it, honor is more important than survival, but by lying Mucius Scaevola gets both.

The problem is that Livy and his sources set a standard of heroism for the legendary paragons

that real people cannot match, because the obstacles are too steep for human capacity. This

prisoners dilemma confronts Titurius Sabinus and Aurunculaeius Cotta in Gaul, when Ambiorix

urged them to evacuate their fort and not resist a siege. Had they stayed, they would have faced

certain death, and by leaving, they forfeited the honor of the Roman name. In the end Sabinus

posthumously gets the worst of both worlds and is condemned as bad exampla.

By praising the good Roman responses from Horatius Cocles, Mucius Scaevola and

Cloelia in 508, Regulus, and those who died in front of their homes when Brennus sacked Rome

in 387, Livy uses the excellence of Roman character to explain the Empire. On the other hand,

bad behavior such as the consuls at Caudine Forks in 321, Metellus after Cannae, Mancinus at

Numantia, Sabinus in Gaul, and Numantius at Teutoberger

Wald must be discouraged. If it cannot be discouraged it

must be revised to deter others from considering actions that

would disgrace the Roman military code in order to survive.

7
Livy 22.53.

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Not surprisingly, despite much indoctrination, there were always those who preferred to take

their chances with disgrace and make a run for it. What makes the crisis of Titurius Sabinus and

Aurunculeius Cotta during Ambiorixs rebellion stand out is that it is almost the only time in

Roman history where bad behavior is left to stand as it happened in order to discourage others

by presenting a bad example.

One reason that the account of the massacred legions in Gaul remains undoctored in later

sources may owe to the fact that Julius recorded it in his Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, and

it would be hard for later sources such as Livy much less Cassius Dio to refute this solid

authority, both because he was the commander-in-chief of the operation and also because he was

the Divine Julius. Of course, Livy did sometimes alter the accounts of lesser, earlier authorities

now lost to us, such as Fabius Pictor, especially on matters from long past history. This situation

was different, either because many family members from the massacred legion were still alive in

Livys lifetime or because some contemporaries would know the account had been sanitized,

injuring Livys credibility for the rest of the history. One may recall how Livy carefully avoided

calling Caesar Augustus a liar in 4.20 when he mentioned the spolia opima of A. Cornelius

Cossus, but revealed the truth of the matter to those willing to read between the lines to maintain

his integrity as a historian.

In brief, Sabinus and Cotta jointly commanded 15 cohorts (each cohort was 360 men) in

the territory of the Eburones in NE Gaul, probably near Tongeren, Limberg in Belgium. The

local chieftain, Ambiorix rebelled against the Romans and offered Sabinus and Cotta free

passage if they would evacuate the territory of the Eburones at once. Sabinus wished to accept

Ambiorixs offer, but Cotta did not trust the Eburones and wanted to fortify the fortress and send

for help from Labienus or Julius. Sabinus insisted, and the Romans evacuated the safety of their

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fortress, upon which they were attacked from all sides by the rebellious Eburones. Cotta was

severely wounded, upon which Sabinus sent his interpreter Gnaeus Pompeius8 to Ambiorix to

ask for quarter. Ambiorix proposed a parlay with the Roman commanders, but Cotta refused to

go to an enemy who had not put down his arms.9 When Sabinus and selected officers

approached Ambiorix, the latter told the Romans to lay down their arms (a gesture of surrender)

and then, during the parlay surrounded the Roman officers and killed them. Cotta resisted as

best he could until he and many of his men were killed, the remainder fleeing back to the

fortress. At night, most of the remained committed suicide (good Romans), and only a few

escaped to tell the story to Labienus.

Julius did not sanitize the account. Sabinus remains the fool who lost his honor and his

life as well as those of his men. Although several Roman diplomatic and military customs

argued against treating with or trusting the enemy, Titurius Sabinus discounted these rules to

the disadvantage of his men and his reputation with the result that all 15 cohorts under his

command were destroyed, and ultimately the lessons of long-standing Roman military tradition

were reaffirmed to all who heard the sad story. Sabinus threw away his reputation, his life, and

those of his men, through a mix of naivety, desperation, and failure to obey the rules of the

Roman state. His bad decision ruined his reputation, although one could claim Julius assigned

all of the blame to Sabinus to save the reputation of Cotta, possibly because Cotta was a better

friend or political dependent.

8
Obviously this was a Gaul sponsored for Roman citizenship by Pompeius Magnus. We do not know his cognomen.
9
His decision mirrors that of App. Claudius Caecus in 278, who urged the Senate to refuse to negotiate with an
enemy (Pyrrhus) while he was still on Roman soil.

8
Gary Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgment (Stuttgart
1999).

Stephen P. Oakley, A Commentary on Livy: Book IX: Volume III (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
2005)

Ron Ridley, Livy and Mnzer, The British School of Rome 1998.
The Historian's Silences: What Livy Did Not KnowOr Chose Not to Tell, JAH
(2013), 4-31.

Nate Rosenstein, Imperatores Victi: The Case of C. Hostilius Mancinus, Classical Antiquity, 5
(1986), 230-252.
Imperatores Victi. Military Defeat and Aristocratic Competition in the Middle and
Late Republic (Berkeley 1990).

E.T. Salmon, The Pax Caudina, JRS 19 (1929), 12-18.

The Resumption of Hostilities after the Caudine Forks, TAPA 87 (1956), 98-108.

Rex Stem, Making an Example of Sabinus, (BG 3.17-19, 5.26-37), CAMWS 2009.

Gaius Stern, Bending the Rules: Augustus and Roman Rigidity in Ransoming POWs, CAPN
2010.

The horrible death some Romans feared if taken Ambiorix beer

POW by the Gauls (this is what happened to
some of Varuss men in AD 9).