24.30
Marcellus advanced with his whole force
against Leontini and summoned Appius to attack it on the opposite side. The
men were so furious at the butchery of the outpost while negotiations were
actually going on that they carried the place at the first assault. When
Hippocrates and Epicydes saw that the enemy were getting possession of the
walls and bursting in the gates, they retreated with a small following to the
citadel, and during the night made their escape secretly to Herbesus. The
Syracusans had already started with an army of 8000 men, and were met at
the river Myla with the news that the city was captured. The rest of the
message was mostly false: their informant told them that there had been an
indiscriminate massacre of soldiers and civilians, and he thought that not a
single adult was left alive; the city had been looted and the property of the
wealthy citizens given to the troops. On receiving this shocking intelligence
the army halted; there was great excitement in all ranks, and the generals,
Sosis and Dinomenes, consulted as to what was to be done. What lent a
certain plausibility to the story and afforded apparent grounds for alarm was
the scourging and beheading of as many as two thousand deserters, but
otherwise not one of the Leontines or the regular troops had been injured
after the city was taken and every man's property was restored to him
beyond what had been destroyed in the first confusion of the assault. The
men could not be induced to continue their march to Leontini, though they
loudly protested that their comrades had been given up to massacre, nor
would they consent to remain where they were and wait for more definite
intelligence. The praetors saw that they were inclined to mutiny, but they did
not believe that the excitement would last long if those who were leading
them in their folly were put out of the way. They conducted the army to
Megara and rode on with a small body of cavalry to Herbesus, hoping in the
general panic to secure the betrayal of the place. As this attempt failed, they
resolved to resort to force, and the following day marched from Megara with
the intention of attacking Herbesus with their full strength. Now that all hope
was cut off, Hippocrates and Epicydes thought that their only course, and
that not at first sight a very safe one, was to give themselves up to the
soldiers, who knew them well, and were highly incensed at the story of the
massacre. So they went to meet the army. It so happened that the front ranks
consisted of a body of 600 Cretans who had served under these very men in
Hieronymus's army and had had experience of Hannibal's kindness, having
been taken prisoners with other auxiliary troops at Trasumennus and
afterwards released. When Hippocrates and Epicydes recognised them by
their standards and the fashion of their arms they held out olive branches and
other suppliant emblems and begged them to receive and protect them and
not give them up to the Syracusans, who would surrender them to the
Romans to be butchered.
