Chapter 27

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.

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.

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.

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 thousandasses. 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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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."

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.

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?

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 coinedasses. 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.

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.

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.

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