University of Virginia Library

21.14

A large crowd had gradually collected to listen to the speaker, and the popular Assembly had become mingled with the senate, when without a moment's warning the leading citizens withdrew before any reply was given. They collected all the gold and silver from public and private sources and brought it into the forum, where a fire had already been kindled, and flung it into the flames, and most of them thereupon leaped into the fire themselves. The terror and confusion which this occasioned throughout the city was heightened by the noise of a tumult in the direction of the citadel. A tower after much battering had fallen, and through the breach created by its fall a Carthaginian cohort advanced to the attack and signalled to their commander that the customary outposts and guards had disappeared and the city was unprotected. Hannibal thought that he ought to seize the opportunity and act promptly. Attacking it with his full strength, he took the place in a moment. Orders had been given that all the adult males were to be put to death; a cruel order, but under the circumstances inevitable, for whom would it have been possible to spare when they either shut themselves up with their wives and children and burnt their houses over their heads, or if they fought, would not cease fighting till they were killed?