[p. 77] in Rome, declaring that they had been released and freed from their obligation because, after leaving the enemy's camp, they had returned to it as if for some chance reason, but really with intent to deceive, and having thus kept the letter of the oath, they had come away again unsworn. This dishonourable cleverness of theirs was considered so shameful, that they were generally despised and reprobated; and later the censors punished them with all possible fines and marks of disgrace, on the ground that they had not done what they had sworn to do. Furthermore Cornelius Nepos, in the fifth book of his Examples 1 has recorded also that many of the senators recommended that those who refused to return should be sent to Hannibal under guard, but that the motion was defeated by a majority of dissentients. He adds that, in spite of this, those who had not returned to Hannibal were so infamous and hated that they became tired of life and committed suicide.
XIX
[19arg] A story, taken from the annals, about Tiberius Gracchus, tribune of the commons and father of the Gracchi; and also an exact quotation of the decrees of the tribunes.A FINE, noble and generous action of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus is recorded in the Examples. 2 It runs as follows: Gaius Minucius Augurinus, tribune of the commons, imposed a fine on Lucius Scipio Asiaticus, brother of Scipio Africanus the elder, 3 and demanded that he should give security
