The Senate recalled Mancinus and his senior staff to Rome to explain the cowardly capitulation. Though the embarrassed Mancinus attempted to justify his conduct, the Senate brutally smacked him down. They stripped Mancinus of his consulship and ordered him deposited at the gates of Numantia in chains to signal Rome’s rejection of the treaty. The Numantines responded by sending Mancinus back to Rome with a message that “a national breach of faith should not be atoned for by the blood of one man.”22
