University of Virginia Library

25.31

The impetuosity of the soldiers being thus checked and time and opportunity given for the deserters in Achradina to effect their escape, the Syracusans were at last relieved of their apprehensions and opened the gates. They at once sent a deputation to Marcellus with the one request that they and their children might remain unharmed. He called a council of war, to which he summoned the Syracusan refugees in the Roman camp, and made the following reply to the deputation: "The crimes committed against the people of Rome during these last few years by those who have held Syracuse quite outweigh all the good services which Hiero rendered us during his fifty years' reign. Most of these, it is true, have recoiled on the heads of those who were guilty of them, and they have punished themselves for their breach of treaties far more severely than the Roman people could have wished. I have been for three years investing Syracuse, not that Rome may make the city her slave, but that the leaders of deserters and renegades may not keep it in a state of oppression and bondage. What the Syracusans could have done has been shown by those amongst them who have been living within the Roman lines, by the Spaniard Moericus who brought over his men, and last of all by the belated but courageous resolution which the Syracusans have now taken. After all the toils and dangers which have endured for so long a time round the walls of Syracuse by sea and land, the fact that I have been able to capture the city is nothing like such a reward as I should have received had I been able to save it." After giving this reply he sent the quaestor with an escort to Nasos to receive the royal treasure into his custody. Achradina was given up for plunder to the soldiers, after guards had been placed at the houses of the refugees who were within the Roman lines.

Amongst many horrible instances of fury and rapacity the fate of Archimedes stands out. It is recorded that amidst all the uproar and terror created by the soldiers who were rushing about the captured city in search of plunder, he was quietly absorbed in some geometrical figures which he had drawn on the sand, and was killed by a soldier who did not know who he was. Marcellus was much grieved and took care that his funeral was properly conducted; and after his relations had been discovered they were honoured and protected by the name and memory of Archimedes. Such, in the main, were the circumstances under which Syracuse was captured, and the amount of plunder was almost greater than if Carthage had been taken, the city which was waging war on equal terms with Rome. A few days prior to the capture of Syracuse, T. Otacilius crossed over from Lilybaeum to Utica with eighty quinqueremes. He entered the harbour before daylight and captured some transports laden with corn, and then landing his men ravaged a considerable portion of the country round Utica and carried back to his ships every description of plunder. He returned to Lilybaeum three days after he had started with a hundred and thirty transports laden with corn and booty. The corn he at once sent on to Syracuse; had it not been for that timely assistance, victors and vanquished alike would have been in danger of a very serious famine.