STRATAGEMS, IV. v. 6-9
and the Senate and the people thanked him "because," they said, " he did not despair of the commonwealth." But throuohout the rest of his life he gave proof tliat he had remained alive not from desire of life, but because of liis love of country. He suffered his beard and hair to remain untrimmed, and never afterwards reclined when he took food at table. Even when honours were decreed him by the people he declined them, saying that the State needed more fortunate magistrates than himself.^
After the complete rout of the Romans at Cannae, when Sempronius Tuditanus and Gnaeus Octavius, tribunes of the soldiers, were besieged in the smaller camp,2 they urged their comrades to draw their swords and accompany them in a dash through the forces of the enemy, declaring that they themselves were resolved on this course, even if no one else possessed the courage to break through. Although among the wavering crowd only twelve knights and fifty foot-soldiers were found who had the courage to accompany them, vet they reached Canusium unscathed.^
When Gaius Fonteius Crassus was in Spain, he set out with three thousand men on a foraging expedition and was enveloped in an awkward position by Hasdrubal In the early part of the night, at a time when such a thing was least expected, having communicated his purpose only to the centurions of the first rank, he broke through the pickets of the enemy.
When the consul Cornelius had been caught in an awkward position by the enemy in the Samnite War,
as six liundred. Appian says ten thousand from the larger camp escaped. One leader only is mentioned by both.
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