Livy, The History of Rome (9BCE), Book XXVI

The consuls, Cneius Fulvius Centumalus and Publius Sulpicius Galba, having entered on their office on the ides of March, assembled the senate in the Capitol, and took the opinion of the fathers on the state of the republic, the manner of conducting the war, and on what related to the provinces and the armies. Quintus Fulvius and Appius Claudius, the consuls of the former year, were continued in command; and the armies which they before had were assigned to them, it being added that they should not withdraw from Capua, which they were besieging, till they had taken it. The Romans were now solicitously intent upon this object, not from resentment so much, which was never juster against any city, as from the consideration that as this city, so celebrated and powerful, had by its defection drawn away several states, so when reduced it would bring back their minds to respect for the former supreme government. Two praetors also of the former year, Marcus Junius and Publius Sempronius, were each continued in command of the two legions which they had under them, the former in Etruria, the latter in Gaul. Marcus Marcellus also was continued in command, that he might, as proconsul, finish the war in Sicily with the army he had there. If he wanted recruits he was to take them from the legions which Publius Cornelius, the propraetor, commanded in Sicily, provided he did not choose any soldier who was of the number of those whom the senate had refused to allow to be discharged, or to return home till the war was put an end to. To Caius Sulpicius, to whose lot Sicily had fallen, the two legions which Publius Cornelius had commanded were assigned, to be recruited from the army of Cneius Fulvius, which had been shamefully beaten, and had experienced a dreadful loss the year before in Apulia. To soldiers of this description the senate had assigned the same period of service as to those who fought at Cannae; and as an additional mark of ignominy upon both, they were not allowed to winter in towns, or to build huts for wintering within the distance of ten miles from any town. To Lucius Cornelius, in Sardinia, the two legions which Quintus Mucius had commanded were assigned; if recruits were wanted, the consuls were ordered to enlist them. To Titus Otacilius and Marcus Valerius was allotted the protection of the coasts of Sicily and Greece, with the legions and fleets which they had commanded. The Greek coast had fifty ships with one legion; the Sicilian, a hundred ships with two legions. Twenty-three legions were employed by the Romans in carrying on the war this year by land and sea.

2 In the beginning of the year, on a letter from Lucius Marcius being laid before the senate, they considered his achievements as most glorious; but the title of honour which he assumed (for though he was neither invested with the command by the order of the people, nor by the direction of the fathers, his letter ran in this form, "The propraetor to the senate") gave offence to a great many. It was considered as an injurious precedent for generals to be chosen by the armies, and for the solemn ceremony of elections, held under auspices, to be transferred to camps and provinces, and (far from the control of the laws and magistrates) to military thoughtlessness. And though some gave it as their opinion, that the sense of the senate should be taken on the matter, yet it was thought more advisable that the discussion should be postponed till after the departure of the horsemen who brought the letter from Marcius. It was resolved, that an answer should be returned respecting the corn and clothing of the army, stating, that the senate would direct its attention to both those matters; but that the letter should not be addressed to Lucius Marcius, propraetor, lest he should consider that as already determined which was the very point they reserved for discussion. After the horsemen were dismissed, it was the first thing the consuls brought before the senate; and the opinions of all to a man coincided, that the plebeian tribunes should be instructed to consult the commons with all possible speed, as to whom they might resolve to send into Spain to take the command of that army which had been under the conduct of Cneius Scipio. The plebeian tribunes were instructed accordingly, and the question was published. But another contest had pre-engaged the minds of the people: Caius Sempronius Blaesus, having brought Cneius Fulvius to trial for the loss of the army in Apulia, harassed him with invectives in the public assemblies: "Many generals," he reiterated, "had by indiscretion and ignorance brought their armies into most perilous situations, but none, save Cneius Fulvius, had corrupted his legions by every species of excess before he betrayed them to the enemy; it might therefore with truth be said, that they were lost before they saw the enemy, and that they were defeated, not by Hannibal, but by their own general. No man, when he gave his vote, took sufficient pains in ascertaining who it was to whom he was intrusting an army. What a difference was there between this man and Tiberius Sempronius! The latter having been intrusted with an army of slaves, had in a short time brought it to pass, by discipline and authority, that not one of them in the field of battle remembered his condition and birth, but they became a protection to our allies and a terror to our enemies. They had snatched, as it were, from the very jaws of Hannibal, and restored to the Roman people, Cumae, Beneventum, and other towns. But Cneius Fulvius had infected with the vices peculiar to slaves, an army of Roman citizens, of honourable parentage and liberal education; and had thus made them insolent and turbulent among their allies, inefficient and dastardly among their enemies, unable to sustain, not only the charge, but the shout of the Carthaginians. But, by Hercules, it was no wonder that the troops did not stand their ground in the battle, when their general was the first to fly; with him, the greater wonder was that any had fallen at their posts, and that they were not all the companions of Cneius Fulvius in his consternation and his flight. Caius Flaminius, Lucius Paullus, Lucius Posthumius, Cneius and Publius Scipio, had preferred falling in the battle to abandoning their armies when in the power of the enemy. But Cneius Fulvius was almost the only man who returned to Rome to report the annihilation of his army. It was a shameful crime that the army of Cannae should be transported into Sicily, because they fled from the field of battle, and not be allowed to return till the enemy has quitted Italy; that the same decree should have been lately passed with respect to the legions of Cneius Fulvius; while Cneius Fulvius himself has no punishment inflicted upon him for running away, in a battle brought about by his own indiscretion; that he himself should be permitted to pass his old age in stews and brothels, where he passed his youth, while his troops, whose only crime was that they resembled their general, should be sent away in a manner into banishment, and suffer an ignominious service. So unequally," he said, "was liberty shared at Rome by the rich and the poor, by the ennobled and the common people."

3 The accused shifted the blame from himself to his soldiers; he said, "that in consequence of their having in the most turbulent manner demanded battle, they were led into the field, not on the day they desired, for it was then evening, but on the following; that they were drawn up at a suitable time and on favourable ground; but either the reputation or the strength of the enemy was such, that they were unable to stand their ground. When they all fled precipitately, he himself also was carried away with the crowd, as had happened to Varro at the battle of Cannae, and to many other generals. How could he, by his sole resistance, benefit the republic, unless his death would remedy the public disasters? that he was not defeated in consequence of a failure in his provisions; that he had not, from want of caution, been drawn into a disadvantageous position; that he had not been cut off by an ambuscade in consequence of not having explored his route, but had been vanquished by open force, and by arms, in a regular engagement. He had not in his power the minds of his own troops, or those of the enemy. Courage and cowardice were the result of each man's natural constitution." He was twice accused, and the penalty was laid at a fine. On the third accusation, at which witnesses were produced, he was not only overwhelmed with an infinity of disgraceful charges, but a great many asserted on oath, that the flight and panic commenced with the praetor, that the troops being deserted by him, and concluding that the fears of their general were not unfounded, turned their backs; when so strong a feeling of indignation was excited, that the assembly clamorously rejoined that he ought to be tried capitally. This gave rise to a new controversy; for when the tribune, who had twice prosecuted him as for a finable offence, now, on the third occasion, declared that he prosecuted him capitally; the tribunes of the commons being appealed to, said, "they would not prevent their colleague from proceeding, as he was permitted according to the custom of their ancestors, in the manner he himself preferred, whether according to the laws or to custom, until he had obtained judgment against a private individual, convicting him either of a capital or finable offence." Upon this, Sempronius said, that he charged Cneius Fulvius with the crime of treason; and requested Caius Calpurnius, the city praetor, to appoint a day for the comitia. Another ground of hope was then tried by the accused, viz. if his brother, Quintus Fulvius, could be present at his trial, who was at that time flourishing in the fame of his past achievements and in the near expectation of taking Capua. Fulvius wrote to the senate, requesting the favour in terms calculated to excite compassion, in order to save the life of his brother; but the fathers replied, that the interest of the state would not admit of his leaving Capua. Cneius Fulvius, therefore, before the day appointed for the comitia arrived, went into exile to Tarquinii, and the commons resolved that it was a legal exile.

4 Meanwhile all the strength of the war was directed against Capua. It was, however, more strictly blockaded than besieged. The slaves and populace could neither endure the famine, nor send messengers to Hannibal through guards so closely stationed. A Numidian was at length found, who, on undertaking to make his way with it, was charged with a letter; and going out by night, through the midst of the Roman camp, in order to fulfil his promise, he inspired the Campanians with confidence to try the effect of a sally from every quarter, while they had any strength remaining. In the many encounters which followed, their cavalry were generally successful, but their infantry were beaten: however, it was by no means so joyful to conquer, as it was miserable to be worsted in any respect by a besieged and almost subdued enemy. A plan was at length adopted, by which their deficiency in strength might be compensated by stratagem. Young men were selected from all the legions, who, from the vigour and activity of their bodies, excelled in swiftness; these were supplied with bucklers shorter than those worn by horsemen, and seven javelins each, four feet in length, and pointed with steel in the same manner as the spears used by light-armed troops. The cavalry taking one of these each upon their horses, accustomed them to ride behind them, and to leap down nimbly when the signal was given. When, by daily practice, they appeared to be able to do this in an orderly manner, they advanced into the plain between the camp and the walls, against the cavalry of the Campanians, who stood there prepared for action. As soon as they came within a dart's cast, on a signal given, the light troops leaped down, when a line of infantry formed out of the body of horse suddenly rushed upon the cavalry of the enemy, and discharged their javelins one after another with great rapidity; which being thrown in great numbers upon men and horses indiscriminately, wounded a great many. The sudden and unsuspected nature of the attack, however, occasioned still greater terror; and the cavalry charging them, thus panic-struck, chased them with great slaughter as far as their gates. From that time the Roman cavalry had the superiority; and it was established that there should be velites in the legions. It is said that Quintus Navius was the person who advised the mixing of infantry with cavalry, and that he received honour from the general on that account.

5 While affairs were in this state at Capua, Hannibal was perplexed between two objects, the gaining possession of the citadel of Tarentum, and the retaining of Capua. His concern for Capua, however, prevailed, on which he saw that the attention of every body, allies and enemies, was fixed; and whose fate would be regarded as a proof of the consequences resulting from defection from the Romans. Leaving therefore, a great part of his baggage among the Bruttians, and all his heavier armed troops, he took with him a body of infantry and cavalry, the best he could select for marching expeditiously, and bent his course into Campania. Rapidly as he marched he was followed by thirty-three elephants. He took up his position in a retired valley behind Mount Tifata, which overhung Capua. Having at his coming taken possession of fort Galatia, the garrison of which he dislodged by force, he then directed his efforts against those who were besieging Capua. Having sent forward messengers to Capua stating the time at which he would attack the Roman camp, in order that they also, having gotten themselves in readiness for a sally, might at the same time pour forth from all their gates, he occasioned the greatest possible terror; for on one side he himself attacked them suddenly, and on the other side all the Campanians sallied forth, both foot and horse, joined by the Carthaginian garrison under the command of Bostar and Hanno. The Romans, lest in so perilous an affair they should leave any part unprotected, by running together to any one place, thus divided their forces: Appius Claudius was opposed to the Campanians; Fulvius to Hannibal; Caius Nero, the propraetor, with the cavalry of the sixth legion, placed himself in the road leading to Suessula; and Caius Fulvius Flaccus, the lieutenant-general, with the allied cavalry, on the side opposite the river Vulturnus. The battle commenced not only with the usual clamour and tumult, but in addition to the din of men, horses, and arms, a multitude of Campanians, unable to bear arms, being distributed along the walls, raised such a shout together with the clangour of brazen vessels, similar to that which is usually made in the dead of night when the moon is eclipsed, that it diverted the attention even of the combatants. Appius easily repulsed the Campanians from the rampart. On the other side Hannibal and the Carthaginians, forming a larger force, pressed hard on Fulvius. There the sixth legion gave way; being repulsed, a cohort of Spaniards with three elephants made their way up to the rampart. They had broken through the centre of the Roman line, and were in a state of anxious and perilous suspense, whether to force their way into the camp, or be cut off from their own army. When Fulvius saw the disorder of the legion, and the danger the camp was in, he exhorted Quintus Navius, and the other principal centurions, to charge the cohort of the enemy which was fighting under the rampart; he said, "that the state of things was most critical; that either they must retire before them, in which case they would burst into the camp with less difficulty than they had experienced in breaking through a dense line of troops, or they must cut them to pieces under the rampart: nor would it require a great effort; for they were few, and cut off from their own troops, and if the line which appeared broken, now while the Romans were dispirited, should turn upon the enemy on both sides, they would become enclosed in the midst, and exposed to a twofold attack." Navius, on hearing these words of the general, snatched the standard of the second company of spearmen from the standard-bearer, and advanced with it against the enemy, threatening that he would throw it into the midst of them unless the soldiers promptly followed him and took part in the fight. He was of gigantic stature, and his arms set him off; the standard also, raised aloft, attracted the gaze both of his countrymen and the enemy. When, however, he had reached the standards of the Spaniards, javelins were poured upon him from all sides, and almost the whole line was turned against him; but neither the number of his enemies nor the force of the weapons could repel the onset of this hero.

6 Marcus Atilius, the lieutenant-general, also caused the standard of the first company of principes of the same legion to be borne against a cohort of the Spaniards. Lucius Portius Licinus and Titus Popilius, the lieutenant-generals, who had the command of the camp, fought valiantly in defence of the rampart, and slew the elephants while in the very act of crossing it. The carcasses of these filling up the ditch, afforded a passage for the enemy as effectually as if earth had been thrown in, or a bridge erected over it; and a horrid carnage took place amid the carcasses of the elephants which lay prostrate. On the other side of the camp, the Campanians, with the Carthaginian garrison, had by this time been repulsed, and the battle was carried on immediately under the gate of Capua leading to Vulturnus. Nor did the armed men contribute so much in resisting the Romans, who endeavoured to force their way in, as the gate itself, which, being furnished with ballistas and scorpions, kept the enemy at bay by the missiles discharged from it. The ardour of the Romans was also clamped by the general, Appius Claudius, receiving a wound; he was struck by a javelin in the upper part of his breast, beneath the left shoulder, while encouraging his men before the front line. A great number, however, of the enemy were slain before the gate, and the rest were driven in disorder into the city. When Hannibal saw the destruction of the cohort of Spaniards, and that the camp of the enemy was defended with the utmost vigour, giving up the assault, he began to withdraw his standards, making his infantry face about, but throwing out his cavalry in the rear lest the enemy should pursue them closely. The ardour of the legions to pursue the enemy was excessive, but Flaccus ordered a retreat to be sounded, considering that enough had been achieved to convince the Campanians, and Hannibal himself, how unable he was to afford them protection. Some who have undertaken to give accounts of this battle, record that eight thousand of the army of Hannibal, and three thousand Campanians, were slain; that fifteen military standards were taken from the Carthaginians, and eighteen from the Campanians. In other authors I find the battle to have been by no means so important, and that there was more of panic than fighting; that a party of Numidians and Spaniards suddenly bursting into the Roman camp with some elephants, the elephants, as they made their way through the midst of the camp, threw down their tents with a great noise, and caused the beasts of burden to break their halters and run away. That in addition to the confusion occasioned, a stratagem was employed; Hannibal having sent in some persons acquainted with the Latin language, for he had some such with him, who might command the soldiers, in the name of the consuls, to escape every one as fast as he could to the neighbouring mountains, since the camp was lost; but that the imposture was soon discovered, and frustrated with a great slaughter of the enemy; that the elephants were driven out of the camp by fire. However commenced, and however terminated, this was the last battle which was fought before the surrender of Capua. Seppius Lesius was Medixtuticus, or chief magistrate of Capua, that year, a man of obscure origin and slender fortune. It is reported that his mother, when formerly expiating a prodigy which had occurred in the family in behalf of this boy, who was an orphan, received an answer from the aruspex, stating, that "the highest office would come to him;" and that not recognising, at Capua, any ground for such a hope, exclaimed, "the state of the Campanians must be desperate indeed, when the highest office shall come to my son." But even this expression, in which the response was turned into ridicule, turned to be true, for those persons whose birth allowed them to aspire to high offices, refusing to accept them when the city was oppressed by sword and famine, and when all hope was lost, Lesius, who complained that Capua was deserted and betrayed by its nobles, accepted the office of chief magistrate, being the last Campanian who held it.

7 But Hannibal, when he saw that the enemy could not be drawn into another engagement, nor a passage be forced through their camp into Capua, resolved to remove his camp from that place and leave the attempt unaccomplished, fearful lest the new consuls might cut off his supplies of provision. While anxiously deliberating on the point to which he should next direct his course, an impulse suddenly entered his mind to make an attack on Rome, the very source of the war. That the opportunity of accomplishing this ever coveted object, which occurred after the battle of Cannae, had been neglected, and was generally censured by others, he himself did not deny. He thought that there was some hope that he might be able to get possession of some part of the city, in consequence of the panic and confusion which his unexpected approach would occasion, and that if Rome were in danger, either both the Roman generals, or at least one of them, would immediately leave Capua; and if they divided their forces, both generals being thus rendered weaker, would afford a favourable opportunity either to himself or the Campanians of gaining some advantage. One consideration only disquieted him, and that was, lest on his departure the Campanians should immediately surrender. By means of presents he induced a Numidian, who was ready to attempt any thing, however daring, to take charge of a letter; and, entering the Roman camp under the disguise of a deserter, to pass out privately on the other side and go to Capua. As to the letter, it was full of encouragement. It stated, that "his departure, which would be beneficial to them, would have the effect of drawing off the Roman generals and armies from the siege of Capua to the defence of Rome. That they must not allow their spirits to sink; that by a few days' patience they would rid themselves entirely of the siege." He then ordered the ships on the Vulturnus to be seized, and rowed up to the fort which he had before erected for his protection. And when he was informed that there were as many as were necessary to convey his army across in one night, after providing a stock of provisions for ten days, he led his legions down to the river by night, and passed them over before daylight.

8 Fulvius Flaccus, who had discovered from deserters that this would happen, before it took place, having written to Rome to the senate to apprize them of it, men's minds were variously affected by it according to the disposition of each. As might be expected in so alarming an emergency, the senate was immediately assembled, when Publius Cornelius, surnamed Asina, was for recalling all the generals and armies from every part of Italy to protect the city, disregarding Capua and every other concern. Fabius Maximus thought that it would be highly disgraceful to retire from Capua, and allow themselves to be terrified and driven about at the nod and menaces of Hannibal. "Was it probable that he, who, though victorious at Cannae, nevertheless dared not approach the city, now, after having been repulsed from Capua, had conceived hopes of making himself master of Rome? It was not to besiege Rome, but to raise the siege of Capua that he was coming. Jupiter, the witness of treaties violated by Hannibal, and the other deities, would defend the city of Rome with that army which is now at the city." To these opposite opinions, that of Publius Valerius Flaccus, which recommended a middle course, was preferred. Regardful of both objects, he thought that a letter should be written to the generals at Capua, informing them of the force they had at the city for its protection, and stating, that as to the number of forces which Hannibal was bringing with him, or how large an army was necessary to carry on the siege of Capua, they themselves knew. If one of the generals and a part of the army could be sent to Rome, and at the same time Capua could be efficiently besieged by the remaining general and army, that then Claudius and Fulvius should settle between themselves which should continue the siege of Capua, and which should come to Rome to protect their capital from being besieged. This decree of the senate having been conveyed to Capua, Quintus Fulvius, the proconsul, who was to go to Rome, as his colleague was ill from his wound, crossed the Vulturnus with a body of troops, to the number of fifteen thousand infantry and a thousand horse, selected from the three armies. Then having ascertained that Hannibal intended to proceed along the Latin road, he sent persons before him to the towns on and near the Appian way, Setia, Cora, and Lanuvium, with directions that they should not only have provisions ready in their towns, but should bring them down to the road from the fields which lay out of the way, and that they should draw together into their towns troops for their defence, in order that each state might be under its own protection.

9 On the day he crossed the Vulturnus, Hannibal pitched his camp at a small distance from the river. The next day, passing by Cales, he reached the Sidicinian territory, and having spent a day there in devastating the country, he led his troops along the Latin way through the territory of Suessa, Allifae, and Casinum. Under the walls of Casinum he remained encamped for two days, ravaging the country all around; thence passing by Interamna and Aquinum, he came into the Fregellan territory, to the river Liris, where he found the bridge broken down by the Fregellans in order to impede his progress. Fulvius also was detained at the Vulturnus, in consequence of Hannibal's having burnt the ships, and the difficulty he had in procuring rafts to convey his troops across that river from the great scarcity of materials. The army having been conveyed across by rafts, the remainder of the march of Fulvius was uninterrupted, a liberal supply of provisions having been prepared for him, not only in all the towns, but also on the sides of the road; while his men, who were all activity, exhorted each other to quicken their pace, remembering that they were going to defend their country. A messenger from Fregella, who had travelled a day and a night without intermission, arriving at Rome, caused the greatest consternation; and the whole city was thrown into a state of alarm by the running up and down of persons who made vague additions to what they heard, and thus increased the confusion which the original intelligence created. The lamentations of women were not only heard from private houses, but the matrons from every quarter, rushing into the public streets, ran up and down around the shrines of the gods, sweeping the altars with their dishevelled hair, throwing themselves upon their knees and stretching their uplifted hands to heaven and the gods, imploring them to rescue the city of Rome out of the hands of their enemies, and preserve the Roman mothers and their children from harm. The senate sat in the forum near the magistrates, in case they should wish to consult them. Some were receiving orders and departing to their own department of duty; others were offering themselves wherever there might be occasion for their aid. Troops were posted in the citadel, in the Capitol, upon the walls around the city, and also on the Alban mount, and the fort of Aesula. During this confusion, intelligence was brought that Quintus Fulvius, the proconsul, had set out from Capua with an army; when the senate decreed that Quintus Fulvius should have equal authority with the consuls, lest on entering the city his power should cease. Hannibal, having most destructively ravaged the Fregellan territory, on account of the bridge having been broken down, came into the territory of the Lavici, passing through those of Frusino, Ferentinum, and Anagnia; thence passing through Algidum he directed his course to Tusculum; but not being received within the walls, he went down to the right below Tusculum to Gabii; and marching his army down thence into the territory of the Pupinian tribe, he pitched his camp eight miles from the city. The nearer the enemy came, the greater was the number of fugitives slain by the Numidians who preceded him, and the greater the number of prisoners made of every rank and age.

10 During this confusion, Fulvius Flaccus entered the city with his troops through the Capuan gate, passed through the midst of the city, and through Carinae, to Esquiliae; and going out thence, pitched his camp between the Esquiline and Colline gates. The plebeian aediles brought a supply of provisions there. The consuls and the senate came to the camp, and a consultation was held on the state of the republic. It was resolved that the consuls should encamp in the neighbourhood of the Colline and Esquiline gates; that Caius Calpurnius, the city praetor, should have the command of the Capitol and the citadel; and that a full senate should be continually assembled in the forum, in case it should be necessary to consult them amidst such sudden emergencies. Meanwhile, Hannibal advanced his camp to the Anio, three miles from the city, and fixing his position there, he advanced with two thousand horse from the Colline gate as far as the temple of Hercules, and riding up, took as near a view as he could of the walls and site of the city. Flaccus, indignant that he should do this so freely, and so much at his ease, sent out a party of cavalry, with orders to displace and drive back to their camp the cavalry of the enemy. After the fight had begun, the consuls ordered the Numidian deserters who were on the Aventine, to the number of twelve hundred, to march through the midst of the city to the Esquiliae, judging that no troops were better calculated to fight among the hollows, the garden walls, and tombs, or in the enclosed roads which were on all sides. But some persons, seeing them from the citadel and Capitol as they filed off on horseback down the Publician hill, cried out that the Aventine was taken. This circumstance occasioned such confusion and terror, that if the Carthaginian camp had not been without the city, the whole multitude, such was their alarm, would have rushed out. They then fled for refuge into their houses and upon the roofs, where they threw stones and weapons on their own soldiers as they passed along the streets, taking them for enemies. Nor could the tumult be repressed, or the mistake explained, as the streets were thronged with crowds of rustics and cattle, which the sudden alarm had driven into the city. The battle between the cavalry was successful, and the enemy were driven away; and as it was necessary to repress the tumults which were arising in several quarters without any cause, it was resolved that all who had been dictators, consuls, or censors, should be invested with authority till such time as the enemy had retired from the walls. During the remainder of the day and the following night, several tumults arose without any foundation, and were repressed.

11 The next day Hannibal, crossing the Anio, drew out all his forces in order of battle; nor did Flaccus and the consuls decline to fight. When the troops on both sides were drawn up to try the issue of a battle, in which Rome was to be the prize of the victors, a violent shower of rain mingled with hail created such disorder in both the lines, that the troops, scarcely able to hold their arms, retired to their camps, less through fear of the enemy than of any thing else. On the following day, likewise, a similar tempest separated the armies marshalled on the same ground; but after they had retired to their camps the weather became wonderfully serene and tranquil. The Carthaginians considered this circumstance as a Divine interposition, and it is reported that Hannibal was heard to say, "That sometimes he wanted the will to make himself master of Rome, at other times the opportunity." Two other circumstances also, one inconsiderable, the other important, diminished his hopes. The important one was, that while he lay with his armed troops near the walls of the city, he was informed that troops had marched out of it with colours flying, as a reinforcement for Spain; that of less importance was, that he was informed by one of his prisoners, that the very ground on which his camp stood was sold at this very time, without any diminution in its price. Indeed, so great an insult and indignity did it appear to him that a purchaser should be found at Rome for the very soil which he held and possessed by right of conquest, that he immediately called a crier, and ordered that the silversmiths' shops, which at that time stood around the Roman forum, should be put up for sale. Induced by these circumstances he retired to the river Tutia, six miles from the city, whence he proceeded to the grove of Feronia, where was a temple at that time celebrated for its riches. The Capenatians and other states in the neighbourhood, by bringing here their first-fruits and other offerings according to their abilities, kept it decorated with abundance of gold and silver. Of all these offerings the temple was now despoiled. After the departure of Hannibal, vast heaps of brass were found there, as the soldiers, from a religious feeling, had thrown in pieces of uncoined brass. The spoliation of this temple is undoubted by historians; but Caelius asserts, that Hannibal, in his progress to Rome, turned out of his way to it from Eretum. According to him his route commenced with Amiternum, Caetilii, and Reate. He came from Campania into Samnium, and thence into Pelignia; then passing the town Sulmio, he entered the territory of the Marrucini; thence through the Alban territory he came to that of the Marsi, from which he came to Amiternum and the village of Foruli. Nor is this diversity of opinion a proof that the traces of so great an army could be confounded in the lapse of so brief a period. That he went that way is evident. The only question is, whether he took this route to the city, or returned by it from the city into Campania?

12 With regard to Capua, Hannibal did not evince such obstinate perseverance in raising the siege of it as the Romans did in pressing it; for quitting Lucania, he came into the Bruttian territory, and marched to the strait and Rhegium with such rapidity, that he was very near taking the place by surprise, in consequence of the suddenness of his arrival. Though the siege had been urged with undiminished vigour during his absence, yet Capua felt the return of Flaccus; and astonishment was excited that Hannibal had not returned with him. Afterwards they learnt, by conversations, that they were abandoned and deserted, and that the Carthaginians had given up all hopes of retaining Capua. In addition to this a proclamation was made by the proconsul, agreeably to a decree of the senate, and published among the enemy, that any Campanian citizen who came over before a stated day should be indemnified. No one, however, came over, as they were held together by fear more than fidelity; for the crimes they had committed during their revolt were too great to admit of pardon. As none of them passed over to the enemy, consulting their own individual interest, so no measure of safety was taken with regard to the general body. The nobility had deserted the state, nor could they be induced to meet in the senate, while the office of chief magistrate was filled by a man who had not derived honour to himself from his office, but stripped the office of its influence and authority by his own unworthiness. Now none of the nobles made their appearance even in the forum, or any public place, but shut themselves up in their houses, in daily expectation of the downfall of their city, and their own destruction together. The chief responsibility in every thing devolved upon Bostar and Hanno, the praefects of the Punic garrison, who were anxious on account of their own danger, and not that of their allies. They addressed a letter to Hannibal, in terms, not only of freedom, but severity, charging him with "delivering, not only Capua into the hands of the enemy, but with treacherously abandoning themselves also, and their troops, to every species of torture;" they told him "he had gone off to the Bruttians, in order to get out of the way, as it were, lest Capua should be taken before his eyes; while, by Hercules, the Romans, on the contrary, could not be drawn off from the siege of Capua, even by an attack upon their city. So much more constant were the Romans in their enmity than the Carthaginians in their friendship. If he would return to Capua and direct the whole operations of the war to that point, that both themselves and the Campanians would be prepared for a sally. That they had crossed the Alps not to carry on a war with the people of Rhegium nor Tarentum. That where the Roman legions were, there the armies of the Carthaginians ought to be. Thus it was that victories had been gained at Cannae and Trasimenus; by uniting, by pitching their camp close to that of the enemy, by trying their fortune." A letter to this effect was given to some Numidians who had already engaged to render their services for a stated reward. These men came into the camp to Flaccus under pretence of being deserters, with the intention of quitting it by seizing an opportunity, and the famine, which had so long existed at Capua, afforded a pretext for desertion which no one could suspect. But a Campanian woman, the paramour of one of the deserters, unexpectedly entered the camp, and informed the Roman general that the Numidians had come over according to a preconcerted plan of treachery, and were the bearers of letters to Hannibal; that she was prepared to convict one of the party of that fact, as he had discovered it to her. On being brought forward, he at first pretended, with considerable pertinacity, that he did not know the woman; but afterwards, gradually succumbing to the force of truth, when he saw the instruments of torture called for and preparing, he confessed that it was so. The letters were produced, and a discovery was made of an additional fact, before concealed, that other Numidians were strolling about in the Roman camp, under pretence of being deserters. Above seventy of these were arrested, and, with the late deserters, scourged with rods; and after their hands had been cut off, were driven back to Capua. The sight of so severe a punishment broke the spirit of the Campanians.

13 The people, rushing in crowds to the senate-house, compelled Lesius to assemble a senate, and openly threatened the nobles, who had now for a long time absented themselves from the public deliberations, that unless they attended the meeting of the senate, they would go round to their houses and drag them all before the public by force. The fear of this procured the magistrate a full senate. Here, while the rest contended for sending ambassadors to the Roman generals, Vibius Virrius, who had been the instigator of the revolt from the Romans, on being asked his opinion, observed, that "those persons who spoke of sending ambassadors, and of peace, and a surrender, did not bear in mind either what they would do if they had the Romans in their power, or what they themselves must expect to suffer. What! do you think," says he, "that your surrender will be like that in which formerly we placed ourselves and every thing belonging to us at the disposal of the Romans, in order that we might obtain assistance from them against the Samnites? Have you already forgotten at what a juncture we revolted from the Romans, and what were their circumstances? Have you forgotten how at the time of the revolt we put to death, with torture and indignity, their garrison, which might have been sent out? How often, and with determined hostility, we have sallied out against them when besieging us, and assaulted their camp? How we invited Hannibal to come and cut them off? And how most recently we sent him hence to lay siege to Rome? But come, retrace on the other hand what they have done in hostility towards us, that you may learn therefrom what you have to hope for. When a foreign enemy was in Italy, and that enemy Hannibal; when the flame of war was kindled in every quarter; disregarding every other object, disregarding even Hannibal himself, they sent two consuls with two consular armies to lay siege to Capua. This is the second year, that, surrounded with lines and shut up within our walls, they consume us by famine, having suffered in like manner with ourselves the extremest dangers and the severest hardships, having frequently had their troops slain near their rampart and trenches, and at last having been almost deprived of their camp. But I pass over these matters. It has been usual, even from of old, to suffer dangers and hardships in besieging an enemy's city. The following is a proof of their animosity and bitter hatred. Hannibal assaulted their camp with an immense force of horse and foot, and took a part of it. By so great a danger they were not in the least diverted from the siege. Crossing the Vulturnus, he laid waste the territory of Cales with fire. Such calamities inflicted upon their allies had no effect in calling them off. He ordered his troops to march in hostile array to the very city of Rome. They despised the tempest which threatened them in this case also. Crossing the Anio, he pitched his camp three miles from the city, and lastly, came up to the very walls and gates. He gave them to understand that he would take their city from them, unless they gave up Capua. But they did not give it up. Wild beasts, impelled by headlong fury and rage, you may divert from their object to bring assistance to those belonging to them, if you attempt to approach their dens and their young. The Romans could not be diverted from Capua by the blockade of Rome, by their wives and children, whose lamentations could almost be heard from this place, by their altars, their hearths, the temples of their gods, and the sepulchres of their ancestors profaned and violated. So great was their avidity to bring us to punishment, so insatiable their thirst for drinking our blood. Nor, perhaps, without reason. We too would have done the same had the opportunity been afforded us. Since, however, the gods have thought proper to determine it otherwise, though I ought not to shrink from death, while I am free, while I am master of myself, I have it in my power, by a death not only honourable but mild, to escape the tortures and indignities which the enemy hope to inflict upon me. I will not see Appius Claudius and Quintus Fulvius in the pride and insolence of victory, nor will I be dragged in chains through Rome as a spectacle in a triumph, that afterwards in a dungeon, or tied to a stake, after my back has been lacerated with stripes, I may place my neck under a Roman axe. I will neither see my native city demolished and burnt, nor the matrons, virgins, and free-born youths of Campania dragged to constupration. Alba, from which they themselves derived their origin, they demolished from her foundations, that there might remain no trace of their rise and extraction, much less can I believe they will spare Capua, towards which they bear a more rancorous hatred than towards Carthage. For such of you, therefore, as have a mind to yield to fate, before they behold such horrors, a banquet is furnished and prepared at my house. When satiated with wine and food, the same cup which shall have been given to me shall be handed round to them. That potion will rescue our bodies from torture, our minds from insult, our eyes and ears from seeing and hearing all those cruelties and indignities which await the vanquished. There will be persons in readiness who will throw our lifeless bodies upon a large pile kindled in the court-yard of the house. This is the only free and honourable way to death. Our very enemies will admire our courage, and Hannibal will learn that those whom he deserted and betrayed were brave allies."

14 More of those who heard this speech of Virrius approved of the proposal contained in it, than had strength of mind to execute what they approved. The greater part of the senate being not without hopes that the Romans, whose clemency they had frequently had proof of in many wars, would be exorable by them also, decreed and sent ambassadors to surrender Capua to the Romans. About twenty-seven senators, following Vibius Virrius to his home, partook of the banquet with him; and after having, as far as they could, withdrawn their minds, by means of wine, from the perception of the impending evil, all took the poison. They then rose from the banquet, after giving each other their right hands, and taking a last embrace, mingling their tears for their own and their country's fate; some of them remained, that they might be burned upon the same pile, and the rest retired to their homes. Their veins being filled in consequence of what they had eaten, and the wine they drank, rendered the poison less efficacious in expediting death; and accordingly, though the greater part of them languished the whole of that night and part of the following day, all of them, however, breathed their last before the gates were opened to the enemy. The following day the gate of Jupiter, which faced the Roman camp, was opened by order of the proconsul, when one legion and two squadrons of allies marched in at it, under the command of Caius Fulvius, lieutenant-general. When he had taken care that all the arms and weapons to be found in Capua should be brought to him; having placed guards at all the gates to prevent any one's going or being sent out, he seized the Carthaginian garrison, and ordered the Campanian senators to go into the camp to the Roman generals. On their arrival they were all immediately thrown into chains, and ordered to lay before the quaestor an account of all the gold and silver they had. There were seventy pounds of gold, and three thousand two hundred of silver. Twenty-five of the senators were sent to Cales, to be kept in custody, and twenty-eight to Teanum; these being the persons by whose advice principally it appeared that the revolt from the Romans had taken place.

15 Fulvius and Claudius were far from being agreed as to the punishment of the Campanian senators. Claudius was disposed to grant their prayer for pardon, but Fulvius was more inclined to severity. Appius, therefore, was for referring the entire disposal of the question to the Roman senate. He thought it right also, that the fathers should have the opportunity of asking them whether any of the Latin confederates, or of the municipal towns, had taken part in these designs, and whether they had derived any assistance from them in the war. Fulvius, on the contrary, urged that they ought by no means to run the hazard of having the minds of faithful allies harassed by doubtful accusations, and subjected to informers who never cared at all what they did or what they said. For this reason he said that he should prevent and put a stop to any such inquiry. After this conversation they separated; Appius not doubting but that his colleague, though he expressed himself so warmly, would, nevertheless, wait for a letter from Rome, in an affair of such magnitude. But Fulvius, fearing that his designs would be frustrated by that very means, dismissed his council, and commanded the military tribunes and the praefects of the allies to give notice to two thousand chosen horsemen to be in readiness at the third trumpet. Setting out for Teanum with this body of cavalry, he entered the gate at break of day, and proceeded direct to the forum; and a number of people having flocked together at the first entrance of the horsemen, he ordered the Sidicinian magistrate to be summoned; when he desired him to bring forth the Campanians whom he had in custody. These were all accordingly brought forth, scourged, and beheaded. He then proceeded at full speed to Cales; where, when he had taken his seat on the tribunal, and while the Campanians, who had been brought forth, were being bound to the stake, an express arrived from Rome, and delivered to him a letter from Caius Calpurnius, the praetor, and a decree of the senate. A murmur immediately pervaded the whole assembly, beginning at the tribunal, that the entire question respecting the Campanians was referred to the decision of the fathers, and Fulvius, suspecting this to be the case, took the letter, and without opening it put it into his bosom, and then commanded the crier to order the lictor to do his duty. Thus punishment was inflicted on those also who were at Cales. The letter was then read, together with the decree of the senate, when it was too late to prevent the business which was already executed, and which had been accelerated by every means to prevent its being obstructed. When Fulvius was now rising from his seat, Jubellius Taurea, a Campanian making his way through the middle of the city and the crowd, called upon him by name, and when Flaccus, who wondered greatly what he could want, had resumed his seat, he said, "Order me also to be put to death, that you may be able to boast, that a much braver man than yourself has been put to death by you." Fulvius at first said, that the man could not certainly be in his senses, then, that he was restrained by a decree of the senate, even though he might wish it, when Jubellius exclaimed "Since, after the capture of my country, and the loss of my relations and friends, after having killed, with my own hand, my wife and children to prevent their suffering any indignity, I am not allowed even to die in the same manner as these my countrymen, let a rescue be sought in courage from this hated existence." So saying, he thrust a sword, which he had concealed under his garment, right through his breast, and fell lifeless at the general's feet.

16 Because not only what related to the punishment of the Campanians, but most of the other particulars of this affair, were transacted according to the judgment of Flaccus alone, some authors affirm that Appius Claudius died about the time of the surrender of Capua, and that this same Taurea neither came to Cales voluntarily nor died by his own hand, but that while he was being tied to the stake among the rest, Flaccus, who could not distinctly hear what he vociferated from the noise which was made, ordered silence, when Taurea said the things which have been before related "that he, a man of the greatest courage, was being put to death by one who was by no means his equal in respect to valour." That immediately on his saying this, the herald, by command of the proconsul, pronounced this order. "Lictor, apply the rods to this man of courage, and execute the law upon him first." Some authors also relate, that he read the decree of the senate before he beheaded them, but that as there was a clause in it, to the effect, that if he thought proper he should refer the entire question to the senate, he construed it that the decision as to what was most for the interest of the state was left to himself. He returned from Cales to Capua. Atella and Calatia surrendered themselves, and were received. Here also the principal promoters of the revolt were punished. Thus eighty principal members of the senate were put to death, and about three hundred of the Campanian nobles thrown into prison. The rest were distributed through the several cities of the Latin confederacy, to be kept in custody, where they perished in various ways. The rest of the Campanian citizens were sold. The remaining subject of deliberation related to the city and its territory. Some were of opinion that a city so eminently powerful, so near, and so hostile, ought to be demolished. But immediate utility prevailed, for on account of the land, which was evidently superior to any in Italy from the variety and exuberance of its produce, the city was preserved that it might become a settlement of husbandmen. For the purpose of peopling the city, a number of sojourners, freed-men, dealers, and artificers, were retained, but all the land and buildings were made the property of the Roman state. It was resolved, however, that Capua should only be inhabited and peopled as a city, that there should be no body-politic, nor assembly of the senate or people, nor magistrates. For it was thought that a multitude not possessing any public council, without a ruling power, and unconnected by the participation of any common rights, would be incapable of combination. They resolved to send a praefect annually from Rome to administer justice. Thus were matters adjusted at Capua, upon a plan in every respect worthy of commendation. Punishment was inflicted upon the most guilty with rigour and despatch, the populace dispersed beyond all hope of return, no rage vented in fire and ruins upon the unoffending houses and walls. Together also with advantage, a reputation for clemency was obtained among the allies, by the preservation of a city of the greatest celebrity and opulence, the demolition of which, all Campania, and all the people dwelling in the neighbourhood of Campania, would have bewailed, while their enemies were compelled to admit the ability of the Romans to punish their faithless allies, and how little assistance could be derived from Hannibal towards the defence of those whom he had taken under his protection.

17 The Roman senate having gone through every thing which required their attention relative to Capua, decreed to Caius Nero six thousand foot and three hundred horse, whichever he should himself choose out of those two legions which he had commanded at Capua, with an equal number of infantry, and eight hundred horse of the Latin confederacy. This army Nero embarked at Puteoli, and conveyed over into Spain. Having arrived at Tarraco with his ships, landed his troops, hauled his ships ashore, and armed his mariners to augment his numbers, he proceeded to the river Iberus, and received the army from Titus Fonteius and Lucius Marcius. He then marched towards the enemy. Hasdrubal, son of Hamilcar, was encamped at the black stones in Ausetania, a place situated between the towns Illiturgi and Mentissa. The entrance of this defile Nero seized, and Hasdrubal, to prevent his being shut up in it, sent a herald to engage that, if he were allowed to depart thence, he would convey the whole of his army out of Spain. The Roman general having received this proposition gladly, Hasdrubal requested the next day for a conference, when the Romans might draw up conditions relative to the surrender of the citadels of the towns, and the appointment of a day on which the garrisons might be withdrawn, and the Carthaginians might remove every thing belonging to them without imposition. Having obtained his point in this respect, Hasdrubal gave orders that as soon as it was dark, and during the whole of the night afterwards, the heaviest part of his force should get out of the defile by whatever way they could. The strictest care was taken that many should not go out that night, that the very fewness of their numbers might both be more adapted to elude the notice of the enemy from their silence, and to an escape through confined and rugged paths. Next day they met for the conference; but that day having been spent, on purpose, in speaking and writing about a variety of subjects, which were not to this point, the conference was put off to the next day. The addition of the following night gave him time to send still more out; nor was the business concluded the next day. Thus several days were spent in openly discussing conditions, and as many nights in privately sending the Carthaginian troops out of their camp; and after the greater part of the army had been sent out, he did not even keep to those terms which he had himself proposed; and his sincerity decreasing with his fears, they became less and less agreed. By this time nearly all the infantry had cleared the defile, when at daybreak a dense mist enveloped the whole defile and the neighbouring plains; which Hasdrubal perceiving, sent to Nero to put off the conference to the following day, as the Carthaginians held that day sacred from the transaction of any serious business. Not even then was the cheat suspected. Hasdrubal having gained the indulgence he sought for that day also, immediately quitted his camp with his cavalry and elephants, and without creating any alarm escaped to a place of safety. About the fourth hour the mist, being dispelled by the sun, left the atmosphere clear, when the Romans saw that the camp of the enemy was deserted. Then at length Claudius, recognising the Carthaginian perfidy, and perceiving that he had been caught by trickery, immediately began to pursue the enemy as they moved off, prepared to give battle; but they declined fighting. Some skirmishes, however, took place between the rear of the Carthaginians and the advanced guard of the Romans.

18 During the time in which these events occurred, neither did those states of Spain which had revolted after the defeat that was sustained, return to the Romans, nor did any others desert them. At Rome, the attention of the senate and people, after the recovery of Capua, was not fixed in a greater degree upon Italy than upon Spain. They resolved that the army there should be augmented and a general sent. They were not, however, so clear as to the person whom they should send, as that, where two generals had fallen within the space of thirty days, he who was to supply the place of them should be selected with unusual care. Some naming one person, and others another, they at length came to the resolution that the people should assemble for the purpose of electing a proconsul for Spain, and the consuls fixed a day for the election. At first they waited in expectation that those persons who might think themselves qualified for so momentous a command would give in their names, but this expectation being disappointed, their grief was renewed for the calamity they had suffered, and then regret for the generals they had lost. The people thus afflicted, and almost at their wits' end, came down, however, to the Campus Martius on the day of the election, where, turning towards the magistrates, they looked round at the countenances of their most eminent men, who were earnestly gazing at each other, and murmured bitterly, that their affairs were in so ruinous a state, and the condition of the commonwealth so desperate, that no one dared undertake the command in Spain. When suddenly Publius Cornelius, son of Publius who had fallen in Spain, who was about twenty-four years of age, declaring himself a candidate, took his station on an eminence from which he could be seen by all. The eyes of the whole assembly were directed towards him, and by acclamations and expressions of approbation, a prosperous and happy command were at once augured to him. Orders were then given that they should proceed to vote, when not only every century, but every individual to a man, decided that Publius Scipio should be invested with the command in Spain. But after the business had been concluded, and the ardour and impetuosity of their zeal had subsided, a sudden silence ensued, and a secret reflection on what they had done, whether their partiality had not got the better of their judgment? They chiefly regretted his youth, but some were terrified at the fortune which attended his house and his name, for while the two families to which he belonged were in mourning, he was going into a province where he must carry on his operations between the tombs of his father and his uncle.

19 Perceiving the solicitude and anxiety which people felt, after performing the business with so much ardour, he summoned an assembly, in which he discoursed in so noble and high minded a manner, on his years, the command intrusted to him, and the war which he had to carry on, as to rekindle and renew the ardour which had subsided, and inspire the people with more confident hopes than the reliance placed on human professions, or reasoning on the promising appearance of affairs, usually engenders. For Scipio was not only deserving of admiration for his real virtues, but also for his peculiar address in displaying them, to which he had been formed from his earliest years;--effecting many things with the multitude, either by feigning nocturnal visions or as with a mind divinely inspired; whether it was that he was himself, too, endued with a superstitious turn of mind, or that they might execute his commands and adopt his plans without hesitation, as if they proceeded from the responses of an oracle. With the intention of preparing men's minds for this from the beginning, he never at any time from his first assumption of the manly gown transacted any business, public or private, without first going to the Capitol, entering the temple, and taking his seat there; where he generally passed a considerable time in secret and alone. This practice, which was adhered to through the whole of his life, occasioned in some persons a belief in a notion which generally prevailed, whether designedly or undesignedly propagated, that he was a man of divine extraction; and revived a report equally absurd and fabulous with that formerly spread respecting Alexander the Great, that he was begotten by a huge serpent, whose monstrous form was frequently observed in the bedchamber of his mother, but which, on any one's coming in, suddenly unfolding his coils, glided out of sight. The belief in these miraculous accounts was never ridiculed by him, but rather increased by his address; neither positively denying any such thing nor openly affirming it. There were also many other things, some real and others counterfeit, which exceeded in the case of this young man the usual measure of human admiration, in reliance on which the state intrusted him with an affair of so much difficulty, and with so important a command, at an age by no means ripe for it. To the forces in Spain, consisting of the remains of the old army, and those which had been conveyed over from Puteoli by Claudius Nero, ten thousand infantry and a thousand horse were added; and Marcus Junius Silanus, the propraetor, was sent to assist in the management of affairs. Thus with a fleet of thirty ships, all of which were quinqueremes, he set sail from the mouth of the Tiber, and coasting along the shore of the Tuscan Sea, the Alps, and the Gallic Gulf, and then doubling the promontory of the Pyrenees, landed his troops at Emporiae, a Greek city, which also derived its origin from Phocaea. Ordering his ships to attend him, he marched by land to Tarraco; where he held a congress of deputies from all the allies; for embassies had poured forth from every province on the news of his arrival. Here he ordered his ships to be hauled on shore, having sent back the four triremes of the Massilians which had, in compliment to him, attended him from their home. After that, he began to give answers to the embassies of the several states, which had been in suspense on account of the many vicissitudes of the war; and this with so great dignity, arising from the great confidence he had in his own talents, that no presumptuous expression ever escaped him; and in every thing he said there appeared at once the greatest majesty and sincerity.

20 Setting out from Tarraco, he visited the states of his allies and the winter quarters of his army; and bestowed the highest commendations upon the soldiers, because, though they had received two such disastrous blows in succession, they had retained possession of the province, and not allowing the enemy to reap any advantage from their successes, had excluded them entirely from the territory on this side of the Iberus, and honourably protected their allies. Marcius he kept with him, and treated him with such respect, that it was perfectly evident there was nothing he feared less than lest any one should stand in the way of his own glory. Silanus then took the place of Nero, and the fresh troops were led into winter quarters. Scipio having in good time visited every place where his presence was necessary, and completed every thing which was to be done, returned to Tarraco. The reputation of Scipio among his enemies was not inferior to that which he enjoyed among his allies and countrymen. They felt also a kind of presentiment of what was to come, which occasioned the greater apprehension, the less they could account for their fears, which had arisen without any cause. They had retired to their winter quarters in different directions. Hasdrubal, son of Gisgo, had gone quite to the ocean and Gades; Mago into the midland parts chiefly above the forest of Castulo; Hasdrubal, son of Hamilcar, wintered in the neighbourhood of Saguntum, close upon the Iberus. At the close of the summer in which Capua was recovered and Scipio entered Spain, a Carthaginian fleet, which had been fetched from Sicily to Tarentum, to cut off the supplies of the Roman garrison in the citadel of that place, had blocked up all the approaches to the citadel from the sea; but by lying there too long, they caused a greater scarcity of provisions to their friends than to their enemies. For so much corn could not be brought in for the townsmen, along the coasts which were friendly to them, and through the ports which were kept open through the protection afforded by the Carthaginian fleet, as the fleet itself consumed, which had on board a crowd made up of every description of persons. So that the garrison of the citadel, which was small in number, could be supported from the stock they had previously laid in without importing any, while that which they imported was not sufficient for the supply of the Tarentines and the fleet. At length the fleet was sent away with greater satisfaction than it was received. The scarcity of provisions, however, was not much relieved by it; because when the protection by sea was removed corn could not be brought in.

21 At the close of the same summer, Marcus Marcellus arriving at the city from his province of Sicily, an audience of the senate was given him by Caius Calpurnius, the praetor, in the temple of Bellona. Here, after discoursing on the services he had performed, and complaining in gentle terms, not on his own account more than that of his soldiers, that after having completely reduced the province, he had not been allowed to bring home his army, he requested that he might be allowed to enter the city in triumph; this he did not obtain. A long debate took place on the question, whether it was less consistent to deny a triumph on his return to him, in whose name, when absent, a supplication had been decreed and honours paid to the immortal gods, for successes obtained under his conduct; or, when they had ordered him to deliver over his army to a successor, which would not have been decreed unless there were still war in the province, to allow him to triumph, as if the war had been terminated, when the army, the evidence of the triumph being deserved or undeserved, were absent. As a middle course between the two opinions, it was resolved that he should enter the city in ovation. The plebeian tribunes, by direction of the senate, proposed to the people, that Marcus Marcellus should be invested with command during the day on which he should enter the city in ovation. The day before he entered the city he triumphed on the Alban mount; after which he entered the city in ovation, having a great quantity of spoils carried before him, together with a model of the capture of Syracuse. The catapultas and ballistas, and every other instrument of war were carried; likewise the rich ornaments laid up by its kings during a long continuance of peace; a quantity of wrought silver and brass, and other articles, with precious garments, and a number of celebrated statues, with which Syracuse had been adorned in such a manner as to rank among the chief Grecian cities in that respect. Eight elephants were also led as an emblem of victory over the Carthaginians. Sosis, the Syracusan, and Mericus, the Spaniard, who preceded him with golden crowns, formed not the least interesting part of the spectacle; under the guidance of one of whom the Romans had entered Syracuse by night, while the other had betrayed to them the island and the garrison in it. To both of them the freedom of the city was given, and five hundred acres of land each. Sosis was to have his portion in the Syracusan territory, out of the lands which had belonged either to the kings or the enemies of the Roman people, together with a house at Syracuse, which had belonged to any one of those persons who had been punished according to the laws of war. Mericus and the Spaniards who had come over with him were ordered to have a city and lands assigned to them in Sicily, which had belonged to some of those who had revolted from the Romans. It was given in charge to Marcus Cornelius to assign them the city and lands wherever he thought proper. In the same country, four hundred acres of land were decreed to Belligenes, by whose means Mericus had been persuaded to come over. After the departure of Marcellus from Sicily, a Carthaginian fleet landed eight thousand infantry and three thousand Numidian cavalry. To these the Murgantian territories revolted; Hybla, Macella, and certain other towns of less note followed their defection. The Numidians also, headed by Mutines, ranging without restraint through the whole of Sicily, ravaged with fire the lands of the allies of the Romans. In addition to these unfortunate circumstances, the Roman soldiers, incensed partly because they had not been taken from the province with their general, and partly because they had been forbidden to winter in towns, discharged their duties negligently, and wanted a a leader more than inclination for a mutiny. Amid these difficulties Marcus Cornelius, the praetor, sometimes by soothing, at other times by reproving them, pacified the minds of the soldiers; and reduced to obedience all the states which had revolted; out of which he gave Murgantia to those Spaniards who were entitled to a city and land, in conformity with the decree of the senate.

22 As both the consuls had Apulia for their province, and as there was now less to be apprehended from Hannibal and the Carthaginians, they were directed to draw lots for the provinces of Apulia and Macedonia. Macedonia fell to the lot of Sulpicius, who succeeded Laevinus. Fulvius having been called to Rome on account of the election, held an assembly to elect new consuls; when the junior Veturian century, which had the right of voting first, named Titus Manlius Torquatus and Titus Otacilius. A crowd collecting round Manlius, who was present, to congratulate him, and it being certain that the people would concur in his election, he went, surrounded as he was with a multitude of persons, to the tribunal of the consul, and requested that he would listen to a few words from him; and that he would order the century which had voted to be recalled. While all present were waiting impatiently to hear what it was he was going to ask, he alleged as an excuse the weakness of his eyes; observing, that "a pilot or a general might fairly be charged with presumption who should request that the lives and fortunes of others might be intrusted to him, when in every thing which was to be done he must make use of other people's eyes. Therefore he requested, that, if it seemed good to him, he would order the junior Veturian century to come and vote again; and to recollect, while electing consuls, the war which they had in Italy, and the present exigencies of the state. That their ears had scarcely yet ceased to ring with the noise and tumult raised by the enemy, when but a few months ago they nearly scaled the walls of Rome." This speech was followed by the century's shouting out, one and all, that "they would not in the least alter their vote, but would name the same persons for consuls;" when Torquatus replied, "neither shall I as consul be able to put up with your conduct, nor will you be satisfied with my government. Go back and vote again, and consider that you have a Punic war in Italy, and that the leader of your enemies is Hannibal." Upon this the century, moved by the authority of the man and the shouts of admirers around, besought the consul to summon the elder Veturian century; for they were desirous of conferring with persons older than themselves, and to name the consuls in accordance with their advice. The elder Veturian century having been summoned, time was allowed them to confer with the others by themselves in the ovile. The elders said that there were three persons whom they ought to deliberate about electing, two of them having already served all the offices of honour, namely, Quintus Fabius and Marcus Marcellus; and if they wished so particularly to elect some fresh person as consul to act against the Carthaginians, that Marcus Valerius Laevinus had carried on operations against king Philip by sea and land with signal success. Thus, three persons having been proposed to them to deliberate about, the seniors were dismissed, and the juniors proceeded to vote. They named as consuls, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, then glorious with the conquest of Sicily, and Marcus Valerius, both in their absence. All the centuries followed the recommendation of that which voted first. Let men now ridicule the admirers of antiquity. Even if there existed a republic of wise men, which the learned rather imagine than know of; for my own part I cannot persuade myself that there could possibly be a nobility of sounder judgment, and more moderate in their desire of power, or a people better moralled. Indeed that a century of juniors should have been willing to consult their elders, as to the persons to whom they should intrust a command by their vote, is rendered scarcely probable by the contempt and levity with which the parental authority is treated by children in the present age.

23 The assembly for the election of praetors was then held, at which Publius Manlius Vulso, Lucius Manlius Acidinus, Caius Laetorius, and Lucius Cincius Alimentus were elected. It happened that just as the elections were concluded, news was brought that Titus Otacilius, whom it seemed the people would have made consul in his absence, with Titus Manlius, had not the course of the elections been interrupted, had died in Sicily. The games in honour of Apollo had been performed the preceding year, and on the motion of Calpurnius, the praetor, that they should be performed this year also, the senate decreed that they should be vowed every year for the time to come. The same year several prodigies were seen and reported. At the temple of Concord, a statue of Victory, which stood on the roof, having been struck by lightning and thrown down, stuck among the figures of Victory, which were among the ornaments under the eaves, and did not fall to the ground from thence. Both from Anagnia and Fregellae it was reported that a wall and some gates had been struck by lightning. That in the forum of Sudertum streams of blood had continued flowing through a whole day; at Eretum, that there had been a shower of stones; and at Reate, that a mule had brought forth. These prodigies were expiated with victims of the larger sort, the people were commanded to offer up prayers for one day, and perform the nine days' sacred rite. Several of the public priests died off this year, and fresh ones were appointed. In the room of Manius Aemilius Numida, decemvir for sacred rites, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus was appointed; in the room of Manius Pomponius Matho, the pontiff, Caius Livius; in the room of Spurius Carvilius Maximus, the augur, Marcus Servilius. As Titus Otacilius Crassus, a pontiff, died after the year was concluded, no person was nominated to succeed him. Caius Claudius, flamen of Jupiter, retired from his office, because he had distributed the entrails improperly.

24 During the same time Marcus Valerius Laevinus, having first sounded the intentions of the leading men by means of secret conferences, came with some light ships to a council of the Aetolians, which had been previously appointed to meet for this very purpose. Here having proudly pointed to the capture of Syracuse and Capua, as proofs of the success of the Roman arms in Sicily and Italy, he added, that "it was a custom with the Romans, handed down to them from their ancestors, to respect their allies; some of whom they had received into their state, and had admitted to the same privileges they enjoyed themselves, while others they treated so favourably that they chose rather to be allies than citizens. That the Aetolians would be honoured by them so much the more, because they were the first of the nations across the sea which had entered into friendship with them. That Philip and the Macedonians were troublesome neighbours to them, but that he had broken their strength and spirits already, and would still further reduce them to that degree, that they should not only evacuate the cities which they had violently taken from the Aetolians, but have Macedonia itself disturbed with war. And that as to the Acarnanians, whose separation from their body was a source of grief to the Aetolians, he would place them again under their ancient system of jurisdiction and dominion." These assertions and promises of the Roman general, Scopas, who was at that time praetor of the nation, and Dorymachus, a leading man among the Aetolians, confirmed on their own authority, extolling the power and greatness of the Roman people with less reserve, and with greater force of conviction. However, the hope of recovering Acarnania principally moved them. The terms, therefore, were reduced to writing, on which they should enter into alliance and friendship with the Roman people, and it was added, that "if it were agreeable to them and they wished it, the Eleans and Lacedaemonians, with Attalus, Pleuratus, and Scerdilaedas, should be included on the same conditions." Attalus was king of Asia; the latter, kings of the Thracians and Illyrians. The conditions were, that "the Aetolians should immediately make war on Philip by land, in which the Romans should assist, with not less than twenty quinqueremes. That the site and buildings, together with the walls and lands, of all the cities as far as Corcyra, should become the property of the Aetolians, every other kind of booty, of the Romans. That the Romans should endeavour to put the Aetolians in possession of Acarnania. If the Aetolians should make peace with Philip, they should insert a stipulation that the peace should stand good only on condition that they abstained from hostilities against the Romans, their allies, and the states subject to them. In like manner, if the Romans should form an alliance with the king, that they should provide that he should not have liberty to make war upon the Aetolians and their allies." Such were the terms agreed upon; and copies of them having been made, they were laid up two years afterwards by the Aetolians at Olympia, and by the Romans in the Capitol, that they might be attested by these consecrated records. The delay had been occasioned by the Aetolian ambassadors' having been detained at Rome. This, however, did not form an impediment to the war's proceeding. Both the Aetolians immediately commenced war against Philip, and Laevinus taking, all but the citadel, Zacynthus, a small island near to Aetolia, and having one city of the same name with the island; and also taking Aeniadae and Nasus from the Acarnanians, annexed them to the Aetolians; and also considering that Philip was sufficiently engaged in war with his neighbours to prevent his thinking of Italy, the Carthaginians, and his compact with Hannibal, he retired to Corcyra.

25 To Philip intelligence of the defection of the Aetolians was brought while in winter quarters at Pella. As he was about to march an army into Greece at the beginning of the spring, he undertook a sudden expedition into the territories of Oricum and Apollonia, in order that Macedonia might not be molested by the Illyrians, and the cities bordering upon them, in consequence of the terror he would thus strike them with in turn. The Apollonians came out to oppose him, but he drove them, terrified and dismayed, within their walls. After devastating the adjacent parts of Illyricum he turned his course into Pelagonia, with the same expedition. He then took Sintia, a town of the Dardanians, which would have afforded them a passage into Macedonia. Having with the greatest despatch performed these achievements, not forgetting the war made upon him by the Aetolians and Romans in conjunction, he marched down into Thessaly through Pelagonia, Lyncus, and Bottiaea. He trusted that people might be induced to take part with him in the war against the Aetolians, and, therefore, leaving Perseus with four thousand armed men at the gorge, which formed the entrance into Thessaly, to prevent the Aetolians from passing it, before he should be occupied with more important business, he marched his army into Macedonia, and thence into Thrace and Maedica. This nation had been accustomed to make incursions into Macedonia when they perceived the king engaged in a foreign war, and the kingdom left unprotected. Accordingly, he began to devastate the lands in the neighbourhood of Phragandae, and to lay siege to the city Jamphorina, the capital and chief fortress of Maedica. Scopas, on hearing that the king had gone into Thrace, and was engaged in a war there, armed all the Aetolian youths, and prepared to invade Acarnania. The Acarnanian nation, unequal to their enemy in point of strength, and seeing that they had lost Aeniadae and Nasus, and moreover that the Roman arms were threatening them, prepare the war rather with rage than prudence. Having sent their wives, children, and those who were above sixty years old into the neighbouring parts of Epirus, all who were between the ages of fifteen and sixty, bound each other by an oath not to return unless victorious. That no one might receive into his city or house, or admit to his table or hearth, such as should retire from the field vanquished, they drew up a form of direful execration against their countrymen who should do so; and the most solemn entreaty they could devise, to friendly states. At the same time they entreated the Epirotes to bury in one tomb such of their men as should fall in the encounter, adding this inscription over their remains: HERE LIE THE ACARNANIANS, WHO DIED WHILE FIGHTING IN DEFENCE OF THEIR COUNTRY, AGAINST THE VIOLENCE AND INJUSTICE OF THE AETOLIANS. Having worked up their courage to the highest pitch by these means, they fixed their camp at the extreme borders of their country in the way of the enemy; and sending messengers to Philip to inform him of the critical situation in which they stood, they obliged him to suspend the war in which he was engaged, though he had gained possession of Jamphorina by surrender, and had succeeded in other respects. The ardour of the Aetolians was damped, in the first instance, by the news of the combination formed by the Acarnanians; but afterwards the intelligence of Philip's approach compelled them even to retreat into the interior of the country. Nor did Philip proceed farther than Dium, though he had marched with great expedition to prevent the Acarnanians being overpowered; and when he had received information that the Aetolians had returned out of Acarnania, he also returned to Pella.

26 Laevinus set sail from Corcyra in the beginning of the spring, and doubling the promontory Leucate, arrived at Naupactus; when he gave notice that he should go thence to Anticyra, in order that Scopas and the Aetolians might be ready there to join him. Anticyra is situated in Locris, on the left hand as you enter the Corinthian Gulf. The distance between Naupactus and this place is short both by sea and land. In about three days after, the attack upon this place commenced on both elements. The attack from the sea produced the greatest effect, because there were on board the ships engines and machines of every description, and because the Romans besieged from that quarter. In a few days, therefore, the town surrendered, and was delivered over to the Aetolians, the booty, according to compact, was given up to the Romans. Laevinus then received a letter informing him, that he had been elected consul in his absence, and that Publius Sulpicius was coming as his successor. He arrived at Rome later than he was generally expected, being detained by a lingering illness. Marcus Marcellus, having entered upon the consulship on the ides of March, assembled the senate on that day merely for form's sake He declared, that "in the absence of his colleague he would not enter into any question relative to the state or the provinces." He said, "he well knew there were crowds of Sicilians in the neighbourhood of the city at the country-houses of those who maligned him, whom he was so far from wishing to prevent from openly publishing, at Rome, the charges which had been circulated and got up against him by his enemies, that did they not pretend that they entertained some fear of speaking of a consul in the absence of his colleague, he would forthwith have given them a hearing of the senate. That when his colleague had arrived, he would not allow any business to be transacted before the Sicilians were brought before the senate. That Marcus Cornelius had in a manner held a levy throughout all Sicily, in order that as many as possible might come to Rome to prefer complaints against him, that the same person had filled the city with letters containing false representations that there was still war in Sicily, in order to detract from his merit." The consul, having acquired on that day the reputation of having a well-regulated mind, dismissed the senate, and it appeared that there would be almost a total suspension of every kind of business till the other consul returned to the city. The want of employment, as usual, produced expressions of discontent among the people. They complained of the length of the war, that the lands around the city were devastated wherever Hannibal had marched his hostile troops; that Italy was exhausted by levies, and that almost every year their armies were cut to pieces, that the consuls elected were both of them fond of war, men over-enterprising and impetuous, who would probably stir up war in a time of profound peace, and therefore were the less likely to allow the state to breathe in time of war.

27 A fire which broke out in several places at once in the neighbourhood of the forum, on the night before the festival of Minerva, interrupted these discourses. Seven shops, where five were afterwards erected, and the banks, which are now called the new banks, were all on fire at once. Afterwards the private dwellings caught, for there were no public halls there then, the prisons called the Quarry, the fish-market, and the royal palace. The temple of Vesta was with difficulty saved, principally by the exertions of thirteen slaves, who were redeemed at the public expense and manumitted. The fire continued for a day and a night. It was evident to every body that it was caused by human contrivance, because the flames burst forth in several places at once, and those at a distance from each other. The consul, therefore, on the recommendation of the senate, publicly notified, that whoever should make known by whose act the conflagration was kindled, should rewarded, if a free-man, with money, if a slave, with liberty. Induced by this reward, a slave of the Campanian family, the Calavii, named Mannus, gave information that "his masters, with five noble Campanian youths, whose parents had been executed by Fulvius, were the authors of the fire, and that they would commit various other acts of the same kind if they were not seized." Upon this they were seized, as well as their slaves. At first, the informer and his evidence were disparaged, for that "he had run away from his masters the day before in consequence of a whipping, and that from an event which had happened by mere chance, he had fabricated this charge, from resentment and wantonness." But when they were charged by their accusers face to face, and the ministers of their villanies begin to be examined in the middle of the forum, they all confessed, and punishment was inflicted upon the masters and their accessory slaves. The informer received his liberty and twenty thousand asses. The consul Laevinus, while passing by Capua, was surrounded by a multitude of Campanians, who besought him, with tears, that they might be permitted to go to Rome to the senate, so that if they could at length be in any degree moved by compassion, they might not carry their resentment so far as to destroy them utterly, nor suffer the very name of the Campanian nation to be obliterated by Quintus Flaccus. Flaccus declared, that "he had individually no quarrel with the Campanians, but that he did entertain an enmity towards them on public grounds and because they were foes, and should continue to do so as long as he felt assured that they had the same feelings towards the Roman people; for that there was no nation or people on earth more inveterate against the Roman name. That his reason for keeping them shut up within their walls was, that if any of these got out any where they roamed through the country like wild beasts, tearing and massacring whatever fell in their way. That some of them had deserted to Hannibal, others had gone and set fire to Rome; that the consul would find the traces of the villany of the Campanians in the half-burnt forum. That the temple of Vesta, the eternal fire, and the fatal pledge for the continuance of the Roman empire deposited in the shrine, had been the objects of their attack. That in his opinion it was extremely unsafe for any Campanians to be allowed to enter the walls of Rome." Laevinus ordered the Campanians to follow him to Rome, after Flaccus had bound them by an oath to return to Capua on the fifth day after receiving an answer from the senate. Surrounded by this crowd, and followed also by the Sicilians and Aeolians, who came out to meet him, he went to Rome; taking with him into the city as accusers of two men who had acquired the greatest celebrity by the overthrow of two most renowned cities, those whom they had vanquished in war. Both the consuls, however, first proposed to the senate the consideration of the state of the commonwealth, and the arrangements respecting the provinces.

28 On this occasion Laevinus reported the state of Macedonia and Greece, of the Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Locrians, and the services he had himself performed there on sea and land. That "Philip, who was bringing an army against the Aetolians, had been driven back by him into Macedonia, and compelled to retire into the heart of his kingdom. That the legion might therefore be withdrawn from that quarter, and that the fleet was sufficient to keep the king out of Italy." Thus much he said respecting himself and the province where he had commanded. The consuls jointly proposed the consideration of the provinces, when the senate decreed, that, "Italy and the war with Hannibal should form the province of one of the consuls; that the other should have the command of the fleet which Titus Otacilius had commanded, and the province of Sicily, in conjunction with Lucius Cincius, the praetor." The two armies decreed to them were those in Etruria and Gaul, consisting of four legions. That the two city legions of the former year should be sent into Etruria and the two which Sulpicius, the consul, had commanded, into Gaul; that he should have the command of Gaul, and the legions there whom the consul, who had the province of Italy, should appoint. Caius Calpurnius, having his command continued to him for a year after the expiration of his praetorship, was sent into Etruria. To Quintus Fulvius also the province of Capua was decreed, with his command continued for a year. The army of citizens and allies was ordered to be reduced, so that, out of two, one legion should be formed consisting of five thousand foot and three hundred horse, those being discharged who had served the greatest number of campaigns. That of the allies there should be left seven thousand infantry and three hundred horse, the same rule being observed with regard to the periods of their service in discharging the old soldiers. With Cneius Fulvius, the consul of the former year, no change was made touching his province of Apulia nor his army; only he was continued in command for a year. Publius Sulpicius, his colleague, was ordered to discharge the whole of his army excepting the marines. It was ordered also, that the army which Marcus Cornelius had commanded, should be sent out of Sicily as soon as the consul arrived in his province. The soldiers which had fought at Cannae, amounting to two legions, were assigned to Lucius Cincius, the praetor, for the occupation of Sicily. As many legions were assigned to Publius Manlius Vulso, the praetor, for Sardinia, being those which Lucius Cornelius had commanded in that province the former year. The consuls were directed so to raise legions for the service of the city, as not to enlist any one who had served in the armies of Marcus Claudius, Marcus Valerius, or Quintus Fulvius, so that the Roman legions might not exceed twenty-one that year.

29 After the senate had passed these decrees, the consuls drew lots for their provinces. Sicily and the fleet fell to the lot of Marcellus; Italy, with the war against Hannibal, to Laevinus. This result so terrified the Sicilians, who were standing in sight of the consuls waiting the determination of the lots, that their bitter lamentations and mournful cries both drew upon them the eyes of all at the time, and afterwards furnished matter for conversation. For they went round to the several senators in mourning garments, affirming, that "they would not only abandon, each of them, his native country, but all Sicily, if Marcellus should again go thither with command. That he had formerly been implacable toward them for no demerit of theirs, what would he do now, when exasperated that they had come to Rome to complain of him? That it would be better for that island to be overwhelmed with the fires of Aetna, or sunk in the sea, than to be delivered up, as it were, for execution to an enemy." These complaints of the Sicilians, having been carried round to the houses of the nobility, and frequently canvassed in conversations, which were prompted partly by compassion for the Sicilians and partly by dislike for Marcellus, at length reached the senate also. The consuls were requested to take the sense of the senate on an exchange of provinces. Marcellus said, that "if the Sicilians had already had an audience of the senate, his opinion perhaps might have been different, but as the case now stood, lest any one should be able to say that they were prevented by fear from freely venting their complaints respecting him, to whose power they were presently about to be subject, he was willing, if it made no difference to his colleague, to exchange provinces with him. That he deprecated a premature decision on the part of the senate, for since it would be unjust that his colleague should have the power of selecting his province without drawing lots, how much greater injustice would it be, nay, rather indignity, for his lot to be transferred to him." Accordingly the senate, having rather shown than decreed what they wished, adjourned. An exchange of provinces was made by the consuls of themselves, fate hurrying on Marcellus to encounter Hannibal, that he might be the last of the Roman generals, who, by his fall, when the affairs of the war were most prosperous, might add to the glory of that man, from whom he derived the reputation of having been the first Roman general who defeated him.

30 After the provinces had been exchanged, the Sicilians, on being introduced into the senate, discoursed largely on the constant fidelity of king Hiero to the Roman people, converting it into a public merit. They said, "that the tyrants, Hieronymus, and, after him, Hippocrates and Epicydes, had been objects of detestation to them, both on other accounts and especially on account of then deserting the Romans to take part with Hannibal. For this cause Hieronymus was put to death by the principal young men among them, almost with the public concurrence, and a conspiracy was formed to murder Epicydes and Hippocrates, by seventy of the most distinguished of their youth; but being left without support in consequence of the delay of Marcellus, who neglected to bring up his troops to Syracuse at the time agreed upon, they were all, on an indictment that was made, put to death by the tyrants. That Marcellus, by the cruelty exercised in the sacking of Leontini, had given occasion to the tyranny of Hippocrates and Epicydes. From that time the leading men among the Syracusans never ceased going over to Marcellus, and promising him that they would deliver the city to him whenever he pleased; but that he, in the first instance, was disposed rather to take it by force, and afterwards, finding it impossible to effect his object by sea or land, after trying every means, he preferred having Syracuse delivered to him by Sosis, a brazier, and Mericus, a Spaniard, to receiving it from the principal men of Syracuse, who had so often offered it to him voluntarily to no purpose; doubtless in order that he might with a fairer pretext butcher and plunder the most ancient allies of the Roman people. If it had not been Hieronymus who revolted to Hannibal, but the people and senate of Syracuse; if the body of the Syracusan people, and not their tyrants, Hippocrates and Epicydes, who held them in thraldom, had closed the gates against Marcellus; if they had carried on war with the Roman people with the animosity of Carthaginians, what more could Marcellus have done in hostility than he did, without levelling Syracuse with the ground? Nothing indeed was left at Syracuse except the walls and gutted houses of her city, the temples of her gods broken open and plundered; her very gods and their ornaments having been carried away. From many their possessions also were taken away, so that they were unable to support themselves and their families, even from the naked soil, the only remains of their plundered property. They entreated the conscript fathers, that they would order, if not all, at least such of their property as could be found and identified, to be restored to the owners." After they had made these complaints, Laevinus ordered them to withdraw from the senate-house, that the senate might deliberate on their requests, when Marcellus exclaimed, "Nay, rather let them stay here, that I may reply to their charges in their presence, since we conduct your wars for you, conscript fathers, on the condition of having as our accusers those whom we have conquered with our arms. Of the two cities which have been captured this year, let Capua arraign Fulvius, and Syracuse Marcellus."

31 The deputies having been brought back into the senate-house, the consul said: "I am not so unmindful of the dignity of the Roman people and of the office I fill as consul, conscript fathers, as to make a defence against charges brought by Greeks, had the inquiry related only to my own delinquency. But it is not so much what I have done, as what they deserved to suffer, which comes into dispute. For if they were not our enemies, there was no difference between sacking Syracuse then, and when Hiero was alive. But if, on the other hand, they have renounced their connexion with us, attacked our ambassadors sword in hand, shut us out of their city and walls, and defended themselves against us with an army of Carthaginians, who can feel indignant that they should suffer the hostilities they have offered? I turned away from the leading men of the Syracusans, when they were desirous of delivering up the city to me, and esteemed Sosis and Mericus as more proper persons for so important an affair. Now you are not the meanest of the Syracusans, who reproach others with the meanness of their condition. But who is there among you, who has promised that he would open the gates to me, and receive my armed troops within the city? You hate and execrate those who did so; and not even here can you abstain from speaking with insult of them; so far is it from being the case that you would yourselves have done any thing of the kind. The very meanness of the condition of those persons, conscript fathers, with which these men reproach them, forms the strongest proof that I did not turn away from any man who was willing to render a service to our state. Before I began the siege of Syracuse I attempted a peace, at one time by sending ambassadors, at another time by going to confer with them; and after that they refrained not from laying violent hands on my ambassadors, nor would give me an answer when I held an interview with their chief men at their gates, then, at length, after suffering many hardships by sea and land, I took Syracuse by force of arms. Of what befell them after their city was captured they would complain with more justice to Hannibal, the Carthaginians, and those who were vanquished with them, than to the senate of the victorious people. If, conscript fathers, I had intended to conceal the fact that I had despoiled Syracuse, I should never have decorated the city of Rome with her spoils. As to what things I either took from individuals or bestowed upon them, as conqueror, I feel assured that I have acted agreeably to the laws of war, and the deserts of each. That you should confirm what I have done, conscript fathers, certainly concerns the commonwealth more than myself, since I have discharged my duty faithfully; but it is the duty of the state to take care, lest, by rescinding my acts, they should render other commanders for the time to come less zealous. And since, conscript fathers, you have heard both what the Sicilians and I had to say, in the presence of each other, we will go out of the senate-house together, in order that in my absence the senate may deliberate more freely." Accordingly, the Sicilians having been dismissed, he himself also went away to the Capitol to levy soldiers.

32 The other consul then proposed to the fathers the consideration of the requests of the Sicilians, when a long debate took place. A great part of the senate acquiesced in an opinion which originated with Titus Manlius Torquatus, "that the war ought to have been carried on against the tyrants, the enemies both of the Syracusans and the Roman people; that the city ought to have been recovered, not captured; and, when recovered, should have been firmly established under its ancient laws and liberty, and not distressed by war, when worn out with a wretched state of bondage. That in the contest between the tyrants and the Roman general, that most beautiful and celebrated city, formerly the granary and treasury of the Roman people, which was held up as the reward of the victor, had been destroyed; a city by whose munificence and bounty the commonwealth had been assisted and adorned on many occasions, and lastly, during this very Punic war. Should king Hiero, that most faithful friend of the Roman empire, rise from the shades, with what face could either Syracuse or Rome be shown to him, when, after beholding his half-demolished and plundered native city, he should see, on entering Rome, the spoils of his country in the vestibule, as it were, of the city, and almost in the very gates?" Although these and other similar things were said, to throw odium upon the consul and excite compassion for the Sicilians, yet the fathers, out of regard for Marcellus, passed a milder decree, to the effect, "that what Marcellus had done while prosecuting the war, and when victorious, should be confirmed. That for the time to come, the senate would look to the affairs of Syracuse, and would give it in charge to the consul Laevinus, to consult the interest of that state, so far as it could be done without detriment to the commonwealth." Two senators having been sent to the Capitol to request the consul to return to the senate-house, and the Sicilians having been called in, the decree of the senate was read. The deputies were addressed in terms of kindness, and dismissed, when they threw themselves at the knees of the consul, Marcellus, beseeching him to pardon them for what they had said for the purpose of exciting compassion, and procuring relief from their calamities, and to receive themselves and the city of Syracuse under his protection and patronage; after which, the consul addressed them kindly and dismissed them.

33 An audience of the senate was then granted to the Campanians. Their speech was more calculated to excite compassion, but their case less favourable, for neither could they deny that they deserved the punishment they had suffered, nor were there any tyrants to whom they could transfer their guilt. But they trusted that sufficient atonement had been made by the death of so many of their senators by poison and the hands of the executioner. They said, "that a few only of their nobles remained, being such as were not induced by the consciousness of their demerit to adopt any desperate measure respecting themselves, and had not been condemned to death through the resentment of their conquerors. That these implored the restoration of their liberty, and some portion of their goods for themselves and families, being citizens of Rome, and most of them connected with the Romans by affinity and now too near relationship, in consequence of intermarriages which had taken place for a long period." After this they were removed from the senate-house, when for a short time doubts were entertained whether it would be right or not to send for Quintus Fulvius from Capua, (for Claudius, the proconsul, died after the capture of that place,) that the question might be canvassed in the presence of the general who had been concerned, as was done in the affair between Marcellus and the Sicilians. But afterwards, when they saw in the senate Marcus Atilius, and Caius Fulvius, the brother of Flaccus, his lieutenant-generals, and Quintus Minucius, and Lucius Veturius Philo, who were also his lieutenant-generals, who had been present at every transaction; and being unwilling that Fulvius should be recalled from Capua, or the Campanians put off, Marcus Atilius Regulus, who possessed the greatest weight of any of those present who had been at Capua, being asked his opinion, thus spoke: "I believe I assisted at the council held by the consuls after the capture of Capua, when inquiry was made whether any of the Campanians had deserved well of our state; and it was found that two women had done so; Vestia Oppia, a native of Atella and an inhabitant of Capua, and Faucula Cluvia, formerly a common woman. The former had daily offered sacrifice for the safety and success of the Roman people, and the latter had clandestinely supplied the starving prisoners with food. The sentiments of all the rest of the Campanians towards us had been the same," he said, "as those of the Carthaginians; and those who had been decapitated by Fulvius, were the most conspicuous in rank, but not in guilt. I do not see," said he, "how the senate can decide respecting the Campanians who are Roman citizens, without an order of the people. And the course adopted by our ancestors, in the case of the Satricani when they had revolted, was, that Marcus Antistius, the plebeian tribune, should first propose and the commons make an order, that the senate should have the power of pronouncing judgment upon the Satricani. I therefore give it as my opinion, that application should be made to the plebeian tribunes, that one or more of them should propose to the people a bill, by which we may be empowered to determine in the case of the Campanians." Lucius Atilius, plebeian tribune, proposed to the people, on the recommendation of the senate, a bill to the following effect: "Concerning all the Campanians, Atellanians, Calatinians, and Sabatinians, who have surrendered themselves to the proconsul Fulvius, and have placed themselves under the authority and dominion of the Roman people; also concerning what things they have surrendered, together with their persons, both lands and city, divine or human, together with their utensils and whatsoever else they have surrendered; concerning these things, Roman citizens, I ask you what it is your pleasure should be done." The commons thus ordered: "Whatsoever the senate on oath, or the majority of those present, may determine, that we will and order."

34 The senate having taken the matter into their consideration in conformity with this order of the people, first restored to Oppia and Cluvia their goods and liberty; directing, that if they wished to solicit any other rewards from the senate, they should come to Rome. Separate decrees were passed respecting each of the Campanian families, all of which it is not worth while to enumerate. The goods of some were to be confiscated; themselves, their children, and their wives were to be sold, excepting such of their daughters as had married before they came into the power of the Roman people. Others were ordered to be thrown into chains, and their cases to be considered at a future time. They made the amount of income the ground on which they decided, whether the goods of the rest of the Campanians should be confiscated or not. They voted, that all the cattle taken except the horses, all the slaves except adult males, and every thing which did not belong to the soil, should be restored to the owners. They ordered that all the Campanians, Atellanians, Calatinians, and Sabatinians, except such as were themselves, or whose parents were, among the enemy, should be free, with a proviso, that none of them should become a Roman citizen or a Latin confederate; and that none of those who had been at Capua while the gates were shut should remain in the city or territory of Capua after a certain day. That a place should be assigned to them to inhabit beyond the Tiber, but not contiguous to it. That those who had neither been in Capua nor in any Campanian city which had revolted from the Romans during the war, should inhabit a place on this side the river Liris towards Rome; and that those who had come over to the Romans before Hannibal arrived at Capua, should be removed to a place on this side the Vulturnus, with a proviso, that none of them should have either land or house within fifteen miles of the sea. That such of them as were removed to a place beyond the Tiber, should neither themselves nor their posterity acquire or possess any property any where, except in the Veientian, Sutrian, or Nepetian territories; and, except on condition, that no one should possess a greater extent of land than fifty acres. That the goods of all the senators, and such as had been magistrates at Capua, Calatia, and Atella, should be sold at Capua; but that the free persons who were decreed to be exposed to sale, should be sent to Rome and sold there. As to the images and brazen statues, which were said to have been taken from the enemy, whether sacred or profane, they referred them to the college of pontiffs. They sent the Campanians away, considerably more grieved than they were when they came, in consequence of these decrees; and now they no longer complained of the severity of Quintus Fulvius towards them, but of the malignity of the gods and their own accursed fortune.

35 After the Sicilians and Campanians were dismissed, a levy was made; and after the troops had been enlisted for the army, they then began to consider about making up the number of rowers; but as there was neither a sufficient supply of men for that purpose, nor any money at that time in the treasury by which they might be purchased or paid, the consuls issued an edict, that private persons should furnish rowers in proportion to their income and rank, as had been done before, with pay and provisions for thirty days. So great was the murmuring and indignation of the people, on account of this edict, that a leader, rather than matter, was wanting for an insurrection. It was said, that "the consuls, after having ruined the Sicilians and Campanians, had undertaken to destroy and lacerate the Roman commons; that, drained as they had been for so many years by taxes, they had nothing left but wasted and naked lands. That the enemy had burned their houses, and the state had taken away their slaves, who were the cultivators of their lands, at one time by purchasing them at a low rate for soldiers, at another by commanding a supply of rowers. If any one had any silver or brass it was taken away from him, for the payment of rowers or for annual taxes. That no force could compel and no command oblige them to give what they had not got. That they might sell their goods and then vent their cruelty on their persons, which were all that remained to them. That they had nothing even left from which they could be redeemed." These complaints were uttered not in secret, but publicly in the forum, and before the eyes of the consuls themselves, by an immense crowd which surrounded them; nor could the consuls appease them now by coercing nor by soothing them. Upon this they said that three days should be allowed them to consider of the matter; which interval the consuls employed in examining and planning. The following day they assembled the senate to consider of raising a supply of rowers; and after arguing at great length that the people's refusal was fair, they brought their discourse to this point, that whether it were just or unjust, this burden must be borne by private individuals. For from what source could they procure rowers, when there was no money in the treasury? and how, without fleets, could Sicily be kept in subjection, or Philip be prevented from entering Italy, or the shores of Italy be protected?

36 In this perplexing state of affairs, when all deliberation was at a stand, and a kind of torpor had seized on men's minds, Laevinus, the consul, observed, that "as the magistrates were more honoured than the senators, and the senators than the people, so also ought they to be the first in taking upon themselves every thing that was burdensome and arduous. If you would enjoin any duty on an inferior, and would first submit yourself and those belonging to you to the obligation, you will find everybody else more ready to obey; nor is an expense thought heavy, when the people see every one of their principal men taking upon himself more than his proportion of it. Are we then desirous that the Roman people should have and equip a fleet? that private individuals should without repugnance furnish rowers? Let us first execute the command ourselves. Let us, senators, bring into the treasury to-morrow all our gold, silver, and coined brass, each reserving rings for himself, his wife, and children, and a bulla for his son; and he who has a wife or daughters, an ounce weight of gold for each. Let those who have sat in a curule chair have the ornaments of a horse, and a pound weight of silver, that they may have a salt-cellar and a dish for the service of the gods. Let the rest of us, senators, reserve for each father of a family, a pound weight only of silver and five thousand coined asses. All the rest of our gold, silver, and coined brass, let us immediately carry to the triumviri for banking affairs, no decree of the senate having been previously made; that our voluntary contributions, and our emulation in assisting the state, may excite the minds, first, of the equestrian order to emulate us, and after them of the rest of the community. This is the only course which we, your consuls, after much conversation on the subject, have been able to discover. Adopt it, then, and may the gods prosper the measure. If the state is preserved, she can easily secure the property of her individual members, but by betraying the public interests you would in vain preserve your own." This proposition was received with such entire approbation, that thanks were spontaneously returned to the consuls. The senate was then adjourned, when every one of the members brought his gold, silver, and brass into the treasury, with such emulation excited, that they were desirous that their names should appear among the first on the public tables; so that neither the triumviri were sufficient for receiving nor the notaries for entering them. The unanimity displayed by the senate was imitated by the equestrian order, and that of the equestrian order by the commons. Thus, without any edict, or coercion of the magistrates, the state neither wanted rowers to make up the numbers, nor money to pay them; and after every thing had been got in readiness for the war, the consuls set out for their provinces.

37 Nor was there ever any period of the war, when both the Carthaginians and the Romans, plunged alike in vicissitudes, were in a state of more anxious suspense between hope and fear. For on the side of the Romans, with respect to their provinces, their failure in Spain on the one hand, and their successes in Sicily on the other, had blended joy and sorrow; and in Italy, the loss of Tarentum was an injury and a source of grief to them, while the unexpected preservation of the citadel with the garrison was matter of joy to them. The sudden terror and panic occasioned by the siege and attack of Rome, was turned into joy by the capture of Capua, a few days after. Their affairs beyond sea also were equalized by a kind of compensation. Philip had become their enemy at a juncture somewhat unseasonable; but then the Aetolians, and Attalus, king of Asia, were added to their allies; fortune now, in a manner, promising to the Romans the empire of the east. The Carthaginians also set the loss of Capua against the capture of Tarentum; and as they considered it as glorious to them to have reached the walls of Rome without opposition, so they were chagrined at the failure of their attempt, and they felt ashamed that they had been held in such contempt, that while they lay under the walls of Rome, a Roman army was marched out for Spain at an opposite gate. With regard also to Spain itself, the greater the reason was to hope that the war there was terminated, and that the Romans were driven from the country, after the destruction of two such renowned generals and their armies, so much the greater was the indignation felt, that the victory had been rendered void and fruitless by Lucius Marcius, a general irregularly appointed. Thus fortune balancing events against each other, all was suspense and uncertainty on both sides, their hopes and their fears being as strong as though they were now first commencing the war.

38 What grieved Hannibal more than any thing was the fact, that Capua having been more perseveringly besieged by the Romans than defended by him, had turned from him the regard of many of the states of Italy, and it was not only impossible for him to retain possession of all these by means of garrisons, unless he could make up his mind to tear his army into a number of small portions, which at that time was most inexpedient, but he could not, by withdrawing the garrisons, leave the fidelity of his allies open to the influence of hope, or subject to that of fear. His disposition, which was strongly inclined to avarice and cruelty, induced him to plunder the places he could not keep possession of, that they might be left for the enemy in a state of desolation. This resolution was equally horrid in principle and in its issue, for not only were the affections of those who suffered such harsh treatment alienated from him, but also of the other states, for the warning affected a greater number than did the calamity. Nor did the Roman consul fail to sound the inclinations of the cities, whenever any prospect of success presented itself. Dasius and Blasius were the principal men in Salapia, Dasius was the friend of Hannibal, Blasius, as far as he could do it with safety, promoted the Roman interest, and, by means of secret messengers, had given Marcellus hopes of having the place betrayed to him, but the business could not be accomplished without the assistance of Dasius. After much and long hesitation and even then more for the want of a better plan than from any hope of success, he addressed himself to Dasius; but he, being both adverse to the measure and also hostile to his rival in the government, discovered the affair to Hannibal. Both parties were summoned, and while Hannibal was transacting some business on his tribunal, intending presently to take cognizance of the case of Blasius, and the accuser and the accused were standing apart from the crowd, which was put back, Blasius solicited Dasius on the subject of surrendering the city; when he exclaimed, as if the case were now clearly proved, that he was being treated with about the betrayal of the city, even before the eyes of Hannibal. The more audacious the proceeding was, the less probable did it appear to Hannibal and those who were present. They considered that the charge was undoubtedly a matter of rivalry and animosity, and that it had been brought because it was of such a nature that, not admitting of being proved by witnesses, it could the more easily be fabricated. Accordingly the parties were dismissed. But Blasius, notwithstanding, desisted not from his bold undertaking, till by continually harping upon the same subject, and proving how conducive such a measure would be to themselves and their country, he carried his point that the Punic garrison, consisting of five hundred Numidians, and Salapia, should be delivered up to Marcellus. Nor could it be betrayed without much bloodshed, consisting of the bravest of the cavalry in the whole Punic army. Accordingly, though the event was unexpected, and their horses were of no use to them in the city, yet hastily taking arms, during the confusion, they endeavoured to force their way out; and not being able to escape, they fell fighting to the last, not more than fifty of them falling into the hands of the enemy alive. The loss of this body of cavalry was considerably more detrimental to Hannibal than that of Salapia, for the Carthaginian was never afterwards superior in cavalry, in which he had before been most effective.

39 During this time the scarcity of provisions in the citadel of Tarentum was almost intolerable; the Roman garrison there, and Marcus Livius, the praefect of the garrison and the citadel, placing all their dependence in the supplies sent from Sicily; that these might safely pass along the coast of Italy, a fleet of about twenty ships was stationed at Rhegium. Decius Quinctius, a man of obscure birth, but who had acquired great renown as a soldier, on account of many acts of bravery, had charge of the fleet and the convoys. At first he had five ships, the largest of which were two triremes, given to him by Marcellus, but afterwards, in consequence of his spirited conduct on many occasions, three quinqueremes were added to his number, at last, by exacting from the allied states of Rhegium, Velia, and Paestum, the ships they were bound to furnish according to treaty, he made up a fleet of twenty ships, as was before stated. This fleet setting out from Rhegium, was met at Sacriportus, about fifteen miles from the city by Democrates, with an equal number of Tarentine ships. It happened that the Roman was then coming with his sails up, not expecting an approaching contest, but in the neighbourhood of Croto and Sybaris, he had supplied his ships with rowers, and had his fleet excellently equipped and armed for the size of his vessels, and it also happened, that just at the time when the enemy were in sight, the wind completely fell, so that there was sufficient time to furl their sails, and get their rowers and soldiers in readiness for the approaching action. Rarely elsewhere have regular fleets engaged with so much spirit, for they fought for what was of greater importance than the fleets themselves. The Tarentines, in order that, having recovered their city from the Romans after the lapse of almost a century, they might also rescue their citadel, hoping also to cut off the supplies of their enemy, if by a naval battle they could deprive them of the dominion of the sea. The Romans, that, by keeping possession of the citadel, they might prove that Tarentum was lost not by the strength and valour of their enemies, but by treachery and stealth. Accordingly, the signal having been given on both sides, they charged each other with the beaks of their ships, and neither did they draw back their own, nor allow the ships of the enemy with which they were engaged to separate from them, having thrown then grappling irons, and thus the battle was carried on in such close quarters, that they fought not only with missile weapons, but in a manner foot to foot even with their swords. The prows joined together remained stationary, while the sterns were moved round by the force of their adversaries' oars. The ships were crowded together in so small a compass, that scarcely one weapon fell into the sea without taking effect. They pressed front against front like lines of troops engaging on land, and the combatants could pass from one ship to another. But the contest between two ships which had engaged each other in the van, was remarkable above the rest. In the Roman ship was Quinctius himself, in the Tarentine, Nico, surnamed Perco, who hated, and was hated by, the Romans, not only on public grounds, but also personally, for he belonged to that faction which had betrayed Tarentum to Hannibal. This man transfixed Quinctius with a spear while off his guard, and engaged at once in fighting and encouraging his men, and he immediately fell headlong with his arms over the prow. The victorious Tarentine promptly boarded the ship, which was all in confusion from the loss of the commander, and when he had driven the enemy back, and the Tarentines had got possession of the prow, the Romans, who had formed themselves into a compact body, with difficulty defending the stern, suddenly another trireme of the enemy appeared at the stern. Thus the Roman ship, enclosed between the two, was captured. Upon this a panic spread among the rest, seeing the commander's ship captured, and flying in every direction, some were sunk in the deep and some rowed hastily to land, where, shortly after, they became a prey to the Thurians and Metapontines. Of the storeships which followed, laden with provisions, a very few fell into the hands of the enemy; the rest, shifting their sails from one side to another with the changing winds, escaped into the open sea. An affair took place at Tarentum at this time, which was attended with widely different success; for a party of four thousand men had gone out to forage, and while they were dispersed, and roaming through the country, Livius, the commander of the citadel and the Roman garrison, who was anxious to seize every opportunity of striking a blow, sent out of the citadel Caius Persius, an active officer, with two thousand soldiers, who attacked them suddenly when widely dispersed and straggling about the fields; and after slaying them for a long time on all hands, drove the few that remained of so many into the city, to which they fled in alarm and confusion, and where they rushed in at the doors of the gates, which were half-opened that the city might not be taken in the same attack. In this manner affairs were equally balanced at Tarentum, the Romans being victorious by land, and the Tarentines by sea. Both parties were equally disappointed in their hope of receiving provisions after they were within sight.

40 While these events were occurring, the consul, Laevinus, after a great part of the year had elapsed, having arrived in Sicily, where he had been expected by both the old and new allies, considered it his first and principal duty to adjust the affairs of Syracuse, which were still in a state of disorder, the peace being but recent. He then marched his legions to Agrigentum, the seat of the remaining part of the war, which was occupied by a strong garrison of Carthaginians; and here fortune favoured his attempt. Hanno was commander-in-chief of the Carthaginians, but their whole reliance was placed upon Mutines and the Numidians. Mutines, scouring the whole of Sicily, employed himself in carrying off spoil from the allies of the Romans; nor could he by force or stratagem be cut off from Agrigentum, or prevented from sallying from it whenever he pleased. The renown which he gained by this conduct, as it began now to eclipse the fame of the commander-in-chief, was at last converted into a source of jealousy; so that even now his successes were not as acceptable as they ought to have been, on account of the person who gained them. For these reasons Hanno at last gave his commission to his own son, concluding that by taking away his command he should also deprive him of the influence he possessed with the Numidians. But the result was very different; for their former attachment to him was increased by the envy incurred by him. Nor did he brook the affront put upon him by this injurious treatment, but immediately sent secret messengers to Laevinus, to treat about delivering up Agrigentum. After an agreement had been entered into by means of these persons, and the mode of carrying it into execution concerted, the Numidians seized on a gate which leads towards the sea, having driven the guards from it, or put them to the sword, and then received into the city a party of Romans sent for that purpose; and when these troops were now marching into the heart of the city and the forum with a great noise, Hanno, concluding that it was nothing more than a disturbance and secession of the Numidians, such as had happened before, advanced to quell the mutiny; but observing at a distance that the numbers were greater than those of the Numidians, and hearing the Roman shout, which was far from being new to him, he betook himself to flight before he came within reach of their weapons. Passing out of the town at a gate in the opposite quarter, and taking Epicydes to accompany him, he reached the sea with a few attendants; and having very seasonably met with a small vessel, they abandoned to the enemy Sicily, for which they had contended for so many years, and crossed over into Africa. The remaining multitude of Carthaginians and Sicilians fled with headlong haste, but as every passage by which they could escape was blockaded up, they were cut to pieces near the gates. On gaining possession of the town, Laevinus scourged and beheaded those who took the lead in the affairs of Agrigentum. The rest, together with the booty, he sold. All the money he sent to Rome. Accounts of the sufferings of the Agrigentines spreading through all Sicily, all the states suddenly turned to the Romans. In a short time twenty towns were betrayed to them, and six taken by storm. As many as forty put themselves under their protection, by voluntary surrender. The consul having rewarded and punished the leading men of these states, according to their several deserts, and compelled the Sicilians, now that they had at length laid aside arms, to turn their attention to the cultivation of their lands, in order that the island might by its produce not only maintain its inhabitants, but, as it had frequently done on many former occasions, add to the supplies of Rome and Italy, he returned into Italy, taking with him a disorderly multitude from Agathyrna. These were as many as four thousand men, made up of a mixed assemblage of every description of persons, exiles, bankrupts, the greater part of them felons, who had supported themselves by rapine and robbery, both when they lived in their native towns, under the restraint of the laws, and also after that a coincidence in their fortunes, brought about by causes different in each case, had congregated them at Agathyrna. These men Laevinus thought it hardly safe to leave in the island, when an unwonted tranquillity was growing up, as the materials of fresh disturbances; and besides, they were likely to be useful to the Rhegians, who were in want of a band of men habituated to robbery, for the purpose of committing depredations upon the Bruttian territory. Thus, so far as related to Sicily, the war was this year terminated.

41 In Spain, in the beginning of spring, Publius Scipio, having launched his ships, and summoned the auxiliary troops of his allies to Tarraco by an edict, ordered his fleet and transports to proceed thence to the mouth of the Iberus. He also ordered his legions to quit their winter quarters, and meet at the same place; and then set out from Tarraco, with five thousand of the allies, to join the army. On his arrival at the camp he considered it right to harangue his soldiers, particularly the old ones who had survived such dreadful disasters; and therefore, calling an assembly, he thus addressed them: "Never was there a new commander before myself who could, with justice and good reason, give thanks to his soldiers before he had availed himself of their services. Fortune laid me under obligations to you before I set eyes on my province or your camp; first, on account of the respect you have shown to my father and uncle, both in their lifetime and since their death; and secondly, because by your valour you have recovered and preserved entire, for the Roman people, and me their successor, the possession of the province which had been lost in consequence of so dreadful a calamity. But since, now, by the favour of the gods, our purpose and endeavour is not that we may remain in Spain ourselves, but that the Carthaginians may not; and not to stand on the bank of the Iberus, and hinder the enemy from crossing that river, but cross it first ourselves, and carry the war to the other side, I fear lest to some among you the enterprise should appear too important and daring, considering your late misfortunes, which are fresh in your recollection, and my years. There is no person from whose mind the memory of the defeats sustained in Spain could be obliterated with more difficulty than from mine; inasmuch as there my father and uncle were both slain within the space of thirty days, so that one death after another was accumulated on my family. But as the orphanhood and desolation of my own family depresses my mind, so both the good fortune and valour of our nation forbid me to despair of the safety of the state. It has happened to us by a kind of fatality, that in all important wars we have been victorious, after having been defeated. I pass over those wars of ancient date with Porsena, the Gauls, and Samnites. I will begin with the Punic wars. How many fleets, generals, and armies were lost in the former war? Why should I mention what has occurred in this present war? I have either been myself present at all the defeats sustained, or have felt more than any other those from which I was absent. What else are the Trebia, the Trasimenus, and Cannae, but monuments of Roman armies and consuls slain? Add to these the defection of Italy, of the greater part of Sicily and Sardinia, and the last terror and panic, the Carthaginian camp pitched between the Anio and the walls of Rome, and the victorious Hannibal seen almost in our gates. Amid this general ruin, the courage of the Roman people alone stood unabated and unshaken. When every thing lay prostrate on the ground, it was this that raised and supported the state. You, first of all, my soldiers, under the conduct and auspices of my father, opposed Hasdrubal on his way to the Alps and Italy, after the defeat of Cannae, who, had he formed a junction with his brother, the Roman name would now have been extinct. These successes formed a counterpoise to those defeats. Now, by the favour of the gods, every thing in Italy and Sicily is going on prosperously and successfully, every day affording matter of fresh joy, and presenting things in a better light. In Sicily, Syracuse and Agrigentum have been captured, the enemy entirely expelled the island, and the province placed again under the dominion of the Romans. In Italy, Arpi has been recovered and Capua taken. Hannibal has been driven into the remotest corner of Bruttium, having fled thither all the way from Rome, in the utmost confusion; and now he asks the gods no greater boon than that he might be allowed to retire in safety, and quit the territory of his enemy. What then, my soldiers, could be more preposterous than that you, who here supported the tottering fortune of the Roman people, together with my parents, (for they may be equally associated in the honour of that epithet,) when calamities crowded one upon another in quick succession, and even the gods themselves, in a manner, took part with Hannibal, should now sink in spirits when every thing is going on happily and prosperously? Even with regard to the events which have recently occurred, I could wish that they had passed with as little grief to me as to you. At the present time the immortal gods who preside over the destinies of the Roman empire, who inspired all the centuries to order the command to be given to me, those same gods, I say, by auguries and auspices, and even by nightly visions, portend entire success and joy. My own mind also, which has hitherto been to me the truest prophet, presages that Spain will be ours; that the whole Carthaginian name will in a short time be banished from this land, and will fill both sea and land with ignominious flight. What my mind presages spontaneously, is also supported by sound reasoning. Their allies, annoyed by them, are by ambassadors imploring our protection; their three generals, having differed so far as almost to have abandoned each other, have divided their army into three parts, which they have drawn off into regions as remote as possible from each other. The same fortune now threatens them which lately afflicted us; for they are both deserted by their allies, as formerly we were by the Celtiberians, and they have divided their forces, which occasioned the ruin of my father and uncle. Neither will their intestine differences allow them to unite, nor will they be able to cope with us singly. Only do you, my soldiers, favour the name of the Scipios, favour the offspring of your generals, a scion springing up from the trunks which have been cut down. Come then, veterans, lead your new commander and your new army across the Iberus, lead us across into a country which you have often traversed, with many a deed of valour. I will soon bring it to pass that, as you now trace in me a likeness to my father and uncle in my features, countenance, and figure, I will so restore a copy of their genius, honour, and courage, to you, that every man of you shall say that his commander, Scipio, has either returned to life, or has been born again."

42 Having animated his troops with this harangue, and leaving Marcus Silanus with three thousand infantry and three hundred horse, for the protection of that district, he crossed the Iberus with all the rest of his troops, consisting of twenty-five thousand infantry and two thousand five hundred horse. Though certain persons there endeavoured to persuade him that, as the Carthaginian armies had retired from each other into three such distant quarters, he should attack the nearest of them; yet concluding that if he did so there was danger lest he should cause them to concentrate all their forces, and he alone should not be a match for so many, he determined for the present to make an attack upon New Carthage, a city not only possessing great wealth of its own, but also full of every kind of military store belonging to the enemy; there were their arms, their money, and the hostages from every part of Spain. It was, besides, conveniently situated, not only for a passage into Africa, but also near a port sufficiently capacious for a fleet of any magnitude, and, for aught I know, the only one on the coast of Spain which is washed by our sea. No one but Caius Laelius knew whither he was going. He was sent round with the fleet, and ordered so to regulate the sailing of his ships, that the army might come in view and the fleet enter the harbour at the same time. Both the fleet and army arrived at the same time at New Carthage, on the seventh day after leaving the Iberus. The camp was pitched over against that part of the city which looks to the north. A rampart was thrown up as a defence on the rear of it, for the front was secured by the nature of the ground. Now the situation of New Carthage is as follows: at about the middle of the coast of Spain is a bay facing for the most part the south-west, about two thousand five hundred paces in depth, and a little more in breadth. In the mouth of this bay is a small island forming a barrier towards the sea, and protecting the harbour from every wind except the south-west. From the bottom of the bay there runs out a peninsula, which forms the eminence on which the city is built; which is washed in the east and south by the sea, and on the west is enclosed by a lake which extends a little way also towards the north, of variable depth according as the sea overflows or ebbs. An isthmus of about two hundred paces broad connects the city with the continent, on which, though it would have been a work of so little labour, the Roman general did not raise a rampart; whether his object was to make a display of his confidence to the enemy from motives of pride, or that he might have free regress when frequently advancing to the walls of the city.

43 Having completed the other requisite works, he drew up his ships in the harbour, that he might exhibit to the enemy the appearance of a blockade by sea also; he then went round the fleet, and having warned the commanders of the ships to be particularly careful in keeping the night-watches, because an enemy, when besieged, usually tried every effort and in every quarter at first, he returned into his camp; and in order to explain to his soldiers the reason why he had adopted the plan of commencing the war with the siege of a city, in preference to any other, and also by exhortations to inspire them with hopes of making themselves masters of it, he summoned them to an assembly, and thus addressed them: "Soldiers, if any one among you suppose that you have been brought here to attack a single city, that man takes a more exact account of your present labour than of its profitable result from it. For you will in truth attack the walls of a single city, but in that single city you will have made yourselves masters of all Spain. Here are the hostages of all her most distinguished kings and states; and as soon as you shall have gained possession of these, they will immediately deliver into your hands every thing which is now subject to the Carthaginians. Here is the whole of the enemy's treasure, without which they cannot carry on the war, as they are keeping mercenary troops, and which will be most serviceable to us in conciliating the affections of the barbarians. Here are their engines, their arms, their tackle, and every requisite in war; which will at once supply you, and leave the enemy destitute. Besides, we shall gain possession of a city, not only of the greatest beauty and wealth, but also most convenient as having an excellent harbour, by means of which we may be supplied with every requisite for carrying on the war both by sea and land. Great as are the advantages we shall thus gain, we shall deprive our enemies of much greater. This is their citadel, their granary, their treasury, their magazine, their receptacle for every thing. Hence there is a direct passage into Africa; this is the only station for a fleet between the Pyrenees and Gades; this gives to Africa the command of all Spain. But as I perceive you are arrayed and marshalled, let us pass on to the assault of New Carthage, with our whole strength, and with undaunted courage." Upon this, they all with, one accord cried out that it should be done; and he led them to Carthage, and ordered that the assault should be made both by sea and land.

44 On the other side, Mago, the Carthaginian general, perceiving that a siege was being prepared for both by sea and land, himself also disposed his forces thus: he placed two thousand of the townsmen to oppose the enemy, on the side facing the Roman camp; he occupied the citadel with five hundred soldiers, and stationed five hundred on a rising ground, facing the east; the rest of his troops he ordered, intent on every thing that occurred, to hasten with assistance wherever the shout, or any sudden emergency, might call them. Then, throwing open the gate, he sent out those he had drawn up in the street leading to the camp of the enemy. The Romans, according to the direction of their general, retired a little, in order that they might be nearer to the reserved troops which were to be sent to their assistance during the engagement. At first they stood with pretty equal force, but afterwards the reserved troops, sent from time to time from the camp, not only obliged the enemy to turn their backs, but followed them up so close when flying in disorder, that had not a retreat been sounded, they seemed as though they would have rushed into the city together with the fugitives. The consternation in the field was not greater than in every part of the city; many of the outposts were abandoned in panic and flight; and the walls were deserted, as they leaped down each in the part nearest him. Scipio, who had gone out to an eminence called Mercury's hill, perceiving that the walls were abandoned by their defenders in many parts, ordered all his men to be called out of his camp and advance to take the city, and orders them to bring the scaling-ladders. The general himself, covered by the shields of three stout young men, (for now an immense number of missiles of every description were let fly from the walls,) came up to the city, cheered them on, and gave the requisite orders; and, what was of the utmost importance in exciting the courage of his men, he appeared among them a witness and spectator of the valour or cowardice of each. Accordingly, they rushed forward, amidst wounds and weapons; nor could the walls, or the armed troops which stood upon them, repel them from eagerly mounting them. At the same time an attack was commenced by the fleet upon that part of the city which was washed by the sea. But here the alarm occasioned was greater than the force which could be employed; for while they were bringing the boats to shore, and hastily landing the ladders and the men, each man pressing forward to gain the land the shortest way, they hindered one another by their very haste and eagerness.

45 In the mean time, the Carthaginians had now filled the walls again with armed men, who were supplied with a great quantity of missiles from the immense stores which they had laid up. But neither men nor missiles, nor any thing else, so effectually defended them as the walls themselves, for very few of the ladders were equal to the height of them, and all those which were longer than the rest were proportionably weaker. Accordingly, those who were highest being unable to mount from them, and being followed, nevertheless, by others, they broke from the mere weight upon them. Some, though the ladders stood, a dizziness having come over their eyes in consequence of the height, fell to the ground. And as men and ladders were every where tumbling down, while the boldness and alacrity of the enemy were increased by the mere success, the signal for retreat was sounded, which afforded hopes to the besieged, not only of present rest after such a laborious contest, but also for the future, as it appeared their city could not be taken by scalade and siege. To raise works they considered would be attended with difficulty, and would give time to their generals to bring them assistance. Scarcely had the first tumult subsided, when Scipio ordered other fresh and unfatigued troops to take the ladders from those who were tired and wounded and assault the city with increased vigour. Having received intelligence that the tide was ebbing, and having before been informed by some fishermen of Tarraco who used to pass through the lake, sometimes in light boats, and, when these ran aground, by wading, that it afforded an easy passage to the wall for footmen, he led some armed men thither in person. It was about mid-day, and besides that the water was being drawn off naturally, in consequence of the tide receding, a brisk north wind rising impelled the water in the lake, which was already in motion, in the same direction as the tide, and rendered it so shallow, that in some parts the water reached only to the navel, while in others it scarcely rose above the knees. Scipio, referring this discovery, which he had made by his own diligence and penetration, to the gods and to miracle, which had turned the course of the sea, withdrawn it from the lake, and opened ways never before trodden by human feet to afford a passage to the Romans, ordered them to follow Neptune as their guide, and passing through the middle of the lake, make good their way to the walls.

46 Those who renewed the assault by land experienced great difficulty; for they were baffled not only by the height of the walls, but also because they exposed the Romans, as they approached them, to the missiles of the enemy from different quarters, so that their sides were endangered more than the fronts of their bodies. But in the other quarter five hundred passed without difficulty through the lake, and then mounted the wall, for neither was it defended by any fortifications, because there they thought the city was sufficiently protected by the nature of the place and the lake, nor were there any outposts or guards stationed there, because all were engaged in bringing succour to that quarter in which the danger appeared. Having entered the city without opposition, they proceeded direct, with all possible speed, to that gate near which the contest was concentrated; and so intently occupied with this were not only the minds, but the eyes and ears of all, both of those who were engaged in fighting, and of those who were looking on and encouraging the combatants, that no one perceived that the city had been captured in their rear till the weapons fell upon their backs, and they had an enemy on both sides of them. Then, the defenders having been thrown into confusion through fear, both the walls were captured, and the gate began to be broken open both from within and from without; and presently, the doors having been broken to pieces by blows, in order that the way might not be obstructed, the troops rushed in. A great number had also got over the walls, but these employed themselves in putting the townsmen to the sword; those which entered by the gate, forming a regular body, with officers and in ranks, advanced through the midst of the city into the forum. Scipio then perceiving that the enemy fled in two different directions, some to the eminence which lay eastward, which was occupied by a garrison of five hundred men, others to the citadel, into which Mago himself also had fled for refuge, together with almost all the troops which had been driven from the walls, sent part of his forces to storm the hill, and part he led in person against the citadel. Not only was the hill captured at the first assault, but Mago also, after making an effort to defend it, when he saw every place filled with the enemy, and that there was no hope, surrendered himself and the citadel, with the garrison. Until the citadel was surrendered, the massacre was continued in every quarter throughout the city; nor did they spare any one they met who had arrived at puberty: but after that, on a signal given, a stop was put to the carnage, and the victors turned their attention to the plunder, of which there was an immense quantity of every description.

47 Of males of free condition, as many as ten thousand were captured. Of these he allowed to depart such as were citizens of New Carthage; and restored to them their city, and all their property which the war had left them. The artisans amounted to two thousand, whom he assigned to the Roman people as their property; holding out to them a hope of speedy emancipation, provided they should address themselves strenuously to the service of the war. Of the rest of the mass of inhabitants, the young men and able-bodied slaves he assigned for the service of the fleet, to fill up the numbers of the rowers. He had also augmented his fleet with five ships which he had captured. Besides this multitude, there remained the Spanish hostages, to whom as much attention was paid as if they had been children of allies. An immense quantity of military stores was also taken; one hundred and twenty catapultae of the larger size, two hundred and eighty-one of the smaller; twenty-three ballistae of the larger size, fifty-two of the smaller; an immense number of scorpions of the larger and smaller size, and also of arms and missile weapons; and seventy-four military standards. Of gold and silver, an immense quantity was brought to the general; there were two hundred and seventy-six golden bowls, almost all of them weighing a pound; of silver, wrought and coined, eighteen thousand three hundred pounds' weight; and of silver vessels an immense number. All these were weighed and reckoned to the quaestor, Caius Flaminius. There were twenty thousand pecks of wheat, and two hundred and seventy of barley. One hundred and thirteen ships of burden were boarded and captured in the harbour, some of them with their cargoes, consisting of corn and arms, besides brass, iron, sails, spartum, and other naval materials, of use in equipping a fleet; so that amid such large military stores which were captured, Carthage itself was of the least consideration.

48 Having ordered Caius Laelius with the marines to guard the city, Scipio led back his legions to the camp the same day in person; and as his soldiers were tired, as they had in one day gone through every kind of military labour; for they had engaged the enemy in the field, and had undergone very great fatigue and danger in taking the city; and after they had taken it had fought, and that on disadvantageous ground, with those who had fled to the citadel, he ordered them to attend to themselves. The next day, having assembled the land and naval forces, he, in the first place, ascribed praise and thanks to the immortal gods, who had not only in one day made him master of the wealthiest city in Spain, but had previously collected in it the riches of almost all Africa and Spain; so that while his enemy had nothing left, he and his army had a superabundance of every thing. He then commended in the highest terms the valour of his soldiers, because that neither the sally of the enemy, nor the height of the walls, nor the unexplored fords of the lake, nor the fort standing upon a high hill, nor the citadel, though most strongly fortified, had deterred them from surmounting and breaking through every thing. Therefore, though all credit was due to them all, he said that the man who first mounted the wall ought to be distinguished above the rest, by being honoured with a mural crown; and he desired that he who thought himself worthy of that reward would claim it. Two persons laid claim to it, Quintus Trebellius, a centurion of the fourth legion, and Sextus Digitius, a marine. Nor did these contest so fiercely as each excited the zeal of his own body of men. Caius Laelius, admiral of the fleet, patronized the marines, and Marcus Sempronius Tuditanus, the legionary troops. As this contest began almost to assume the character of a mutiny, Scipio having notified that he should appoint three delegates, who, after making themselves acquainted with the case, and examining the witnesses, might decide which had been the first to scale the wall and enter the town, added Publius Cornelius Caudinus, a middle party, to Laelius and Sempronius, the advocates of the two parties, and ordered these three delegates to sit and determine the cause. But as the contest was now carried on with increased warmth, because those high characters, who had acted more as moderators of the zeal of both than as advocates of any particular party, were withdrawn, Caius Laelius, leaving the council, went up to the tribunal of Scipio and informed him, "that the contest was proceeding without bounds or moderation, and that they had almost come to blows. But still, though no violence should take place, that the proceedings formed a most hateful precedent, for that the honours due to valour were being sought by fraud and perjury. That on one side stood the legionary troops, on the other the marines, ready to swear by all the gods what they wished, rather than what they knew, to be true, and to involve in the guilt of perjury not only themselves and their own persons, but the military standards, the eagles, and their solemn oath of allegiance. That he laid these matters before him, in accordance with the opinion of Publius Cornelius and Marcus Sempronius." Scipio, after highly praising Laelius, summoned an assembly, and then declared, "that he had ascertained satisfactorily that Quintus Trebellius and Sextus Digitius had mounted the wall at the same time, and that he presented them both with mural crowns in consideration of their valour." He then gave presents to the rest, according to the merit and valour of each. Above all he honoured Caius Laelius, the admiral of the fleet, by the placing him upon an equality with himself, and bestowing upon him every kind of commendation, and also by presenting him with a golden crown and thirty oxen.

49 He then ordered the Spanish hostages to be summoned. What the number of these was I feel reluctant to state, because in some authors I find that it was about three hundred, in others seven hundred and twenty-five. There is the same difference between authors with regard to the other particulars. One writes that the Punic garrison consisted of ten thousand, another of seven, a third of not more than two thousand. In some you may find that ten thousand persons were captured, in others above twenty-five thousand. I should have stated the number of scorpions captured, both of the greater and smaller size, at sixty, if I had followed the Greek author, Silenus, if Valerius Antius, of the larger at six thousand, of the smaller at thirteen, so great is the extent of falsehood. Nor are they agreed even respecting the commanders, most say that Laelius commanded the fleet, but some say Marcus Junius Silanus. Valerius Antius says, that Arines commanded the Punic garrison, and was given up to the Romans; other writers say it was Mago. They are not agreed respecting the number of the ships taken, respecting the weight of gold and silver, and of the money brought into the public treasury. If we must assent to some of their statements, the medium is nearest to the truth. However, Scipio having summoned the hostages, first bid them all keep up their spirits observing, "that they had fallen into the hands of the Roman people, who chose to bind men to them by benefits rather than by fear, and keep foreign nations attached to them by honour and friendship, rather than subject them to a gloomy servitude." Then receiving the names of the states to which they belonged, he took an account of the captives, distinguishing the number belonging to each people, and sent messengers to their homes, to desire that they would come and take back their respective friends. If ambassadors from any of the states happened to be present, he delivered their countrymen to them in person, and assigned to them the quaestor, Caius Flaminius, the charge of kindly taking care of the rest. Meanwhile, there advanced from the midst of the crowd of hostages a woman in years, the wife of Mandonius, who was the brother of Indibilis, the chieftain of the Illergetians; she threw herself weeping at the general's feet, and began to implore him to give particularly strict injunctions to their guardians with respect to the care and treatment of females. Scipio replied, that nothing certainly should be wanting; when the woman rejoined: "We do not much value such things, for what is not good enough for such a condition? A care of a different kind disquiets me, when beholding the age of these females; for I am myself no longer exposed to the danger peculiar to females." Around her stood the daughters of Indibilis, in the bloom of youth and beauty, with others of equal rank, all of whom looked up to her as a parent. Scipio then said: "Out of regard for that discipline which I myself and the Roman nation maintain, I should take care that nothing, which is any where held sacred, should be violated among us. In the present case, your virtue and your rank cause me to observe it more strictly; for not even in the midst of misfortunes have you forgotten the delicacy becoming matrons." He then delivered them over to a man of tried virtue, ordering him to treat them with no less respect and modesty than the wives and mothers of guests.

50 The soldiers then brought to him a female captive, a grown-up virgin, of such exquisite beauty, that whichever way she walked she attracted the eyes of every body. Scipio, on making inquiries as to her country and parentage, heard, among other particulars, that she was betrothed to a young prince of the Celtiberians, named Allucius. He immediately, therefore, summoned from their abode her parents and lover, and having heard in the mean time that the latter was desperately enamoured of her, as soon as he arrived he addressed him in a more studied manner than her parents. "A young man myself," said he, "I address myself to a young man, and therefore there need be the less reserve in this conversation. As soon as your intended bride, having been captured by my soldiers, was brought into my presence, and I was informed that she was endeared to you, which her beauty rendered probable, considering that I should myself wish that my affection for my intended bride, though excessive, should meet with indulgence, could I enjoy the pleasures suited to my age, (particularly in an honourable and lawful love,) and were not my mind engrossed by public affairs, I indulge as far as I can your passion. Your mistress, while under my protection, has received as much respect as under the roof of her own parents, your father-in-law and mother-in-law. She has been kept in perfect safety for you, that she might be presented to you pure, a gift worthy of me and of you. This only reward I bargain for in return for the service I have rendered you, that you would be a friend to the Roman people, and if you believe that I am a true man, as these nations knew my father and uncle to have been heretofore, that you would feel assured that in the Roman state there are many like us, and that no nation in the world at the present time can be mentioned, with which you ought to be less disposed that you, or those belonging to you, should be at enmity, or with which you would rather be in friendship." The young man, overcome at once with joy and modesty, clung to Scipio's right hand, and invoked all the gods to recompense him in his behalf, since he himself was far from possessing means proportioned either to his own wishes or Scipio's deserts. He then addressed himself to the parents and relatives of the damsel, who, on receiving her back without any reward, whom they had brought a very large weight of gold to redeem, entreated Scipio to accept it from them as a present to himself; affirming, that if he would do so, they should feel as grateful for it as they did for the restoration of their daughter inviolate. As they were so earnest in their entreaties, Scipio promised to accept it, and ordered it to be laid at his feet. Then calling Allucius to him, he said: "To the dowry which you are about to receive from your father-in-law, let these marriage presents also from me be added;" bidding him take away the gold and keep it for himself. Delighted with these presents and honours, he was dismissed to his home, where he inspired his countrymen with the deserved praises of Scipio, observing, "that a most godlike youth had come among them, who conquered every thing, not only by arms, but by kindness and generosity." Accordingly, making a levy among his dependants, he returned to Scipio after a few days, with fourteen hundred chosen horsemen.

51 Scipio kept Laelius with him until he had disposed of the captives, hostages, and booty, in accordance with his advice; but when all these matters were satisfactorily arranged, he gave him a quinquereme; and selecting from the captives Mago, and about fifteen senators who had been made prisoners at the same time with him, put them on board, and sent him to Rome with the news of his victory. He himself employed the few days he had resolved to stay at Carthage, in exercising his naval and land forces. On the first day the legions under arms performed evolutions through a space of four miles; on the second day he ordered them to repair and clean their arms before their tents; on the third day they engaged in imitation of a regular battle with wooden swords, throwing javelins with the points covered with balls; on the fourth day they rested; on the fifth they again performed evolutions under arms. This succession of exercise and rest they kept up as long as they staid at Carthage. The rowers and mariners, pushing out to sea when the weather was calm, made trial of the manageableness of their ships by mock sea-fights. Such exercises, both by sea and land, without the city prepared their minds and bodies for war. The city itself was all bustle with warlike preparations, artificers of every description being collected together in a public workshop. The general went round to all the works with equal attention. At one time he was employed in the dock-yard with his fleet, at another he exercised with the legions; sometimes he would devote his time to the inspection of the works, which were every day carried on with the greatest eagerness by a multitude of artificers both in the workshops, and in the armoury and docks. Having put these preparations in a train, repaired the walls in a part where they had been shattered, and placed bodies of troops to guard the city, he set out for Tarraco; and on his way thither was visited by a number of embassies, some of which he dismissed, having given them answers on his journey, others he postponed till his arrival at Tarraco; at which place he had appointed a meeting of all his new and old allies. Here ambassadors from almost all the people dwelling on this side the Iberus, and from many dwelling in the further Spain, met. The Carthaginian generals at first industriously suppressed the rumour of the capture of Carthage; but afterwards, when it became too notorious to be concealed or dissembled, they disparaged its importance by their language. They said, that "by an unexpected attack, and in a manner by stealth, in one day, one city of Spain had been snatched out of their hands; that a presumptuous youth, elated with the acquisition of this, so inconsiderable an advantage, had, by the extravagance of his joy, given it the air of an important victory; but that as soon as he should hear that three generals and three victorious armies of his enemies were approaching, the deaths which had taken place in his family would occur to his recollection." Such was the tone in which they spoke of this affair to the people, though they were, at the same time, far from ignorant how much their strength had been diminished, in every respect, by the loss of Carthage.