Appius Claudius the Blind

In 280 BC King Pyrrhus of Epirus, the most celebrated general of his age, crossed to Italy to help the Greek city of Tarentum against Rome. He defeated the Romans at Heraclea, using elephants they had never seen before, and then sent his adviser Cineas, a famous orator, to Rome to offer peace. Cineas came with gifts and spoke well, and Plutarch says many senators were inclined to accept.

Appius Claudius Caecus was by then very old and had been blind for years. As censor more than thirty years earlier he had begun the Appian Way and Rome's first aqueduct. When he heard that the Senate was about to vote for peace, Plutarch says, he had his servants carry him on a litter through the Forum to the Senate house. At the door his sons and sons-in-law took him in their arms and carried him inside, and the senators fell silent out of respect. He told them that he had once thought the loss of his sight a misfortune, but now he wished he were deaf as well, so as not to hear such shameful counsels. Rome should not talk of peace, he said, while Pyrrhus's army stood in Italy. The Senate sent Cineas away with that answer. Cicero says the speech still existed in his time, two centuries later.