24.3
Before
Pyrrhus' arrival in Italy, the city of Croto had walls which formed a circuit of
twelve miles. After the devastation caused by that war hardly half the place
was inhabited; the river which used to flow through the middle of the city
now ran outside the part where the houses were, and the citadel was at a
considerable distance from them. Sixteen miles from this famous city there
was a still more famous temple to Juno Lacinia, an object of veneration to all
the surrounding communities. There was a grove here enclosed by a dense
wood and lofty fir-trees, in the middle of which there was a glade affording
delightful pasture. In this glade cattle of every kind, sacred to the goddess,
used to feed without any one to look after them, and at nightfall the different
herds separated each to their own stalls without any beasts of prey lying in
wait for them or any human hands to steal them. These cattle were a source
of great profit, and a column of solid gold was made from the money thus
gained and dedicated to the goddess. Thus the temple became celebrated for
its wealth as well as for its sanctity, and as generally happens in these famous
spots, some miracles also were attributed to it. It was commonly reported
that an altar stood in the porch of the temple, the ashes on which were never
stirred by any wind.
The citadel of Croto, which overhung the sea on one side and on
the other faced the land, was formerly protected by its natural position;
afterwards it was further protected by a wall, on the side where Dionysius,
the Sicilian tyrant, had captured it by stratagem, scaling it on the side away
from the sea. It was this citadel that the aristocrats of Croto now occupied,
regarding it as a fairly safe stronghold, while the populace in conjunction
with the Bruttians besieged them. At last the Bruttians saw that they could
never take the place in their own strength, and found themselves compelled
to appeal to Hanno for help. He tried to bring the Crotonians to a surrender
on condition that they would admit a Bruttian colony and allow their city,
wasted and desolate as it was by war, to recover its ancient populousness.
Not a single man amongst them, except Aristomachus, would listen to him.
They said that they would sooner die than be mingled with Bruttians and
change to alien ceremonies, customs, and laws, and soon even to a foreign
speech. Aristomachus, finding himself powerless to persuade them to
surrender and not getting any opportunity of betraying the citadel as he had
betrayed the city, went off by himself to Hanno. Shortly after some envoys
from Locri, who had, with Hanno's permission, obtained access to the
citadel, persuaded them to suffer themselves to be transferred to Locri
instead of facing the last extremity. They had already sent to Hannibal and
obtained his consent to this course. So they left Croto and were conducted
to the sea and put on board ship and sailed in a body for Locri. In Apulia
even the winter did not pass quietly so far as the Romans and Hannibal were
concerned. Sempronius was wintering at Luceria and Hannibal not far from
Arpi; skirmishes took place between them as occasion offered or either side
saw its opportunity, and these brushes with the enemy made the Romans
more efficient every day and more familiar with the cunning methods of their
opponents.
