26.30
When
the exchange of provinces had been decided, the Sicilians were introduced
into the senate. After expatiating at some length upon the unbroken loyalty
of Hiero to Rome, and claiming the credit of it for the people rather than for
the king, they proceeded: "There were many reasons for the hatred we felt
towards Hieronymus and afterwards towards Hippocrates and Epicydes, but
the principal one was their abandoning Rome for Hannibal. It was this that
led some of the foremost of our younger men to assassinate Hieronymus
close to the senate-house, and also induced some seventy who belonged to
our noblest houses to form a plot for the destruction of Epicydes and
Hippocrates. As Marcellus failed to support them by bringing up his army to
Syracuse at the time he promised, the plot was disclosed by an informer, and
they were all put to death by the tyrants. Marcellus was really responsible for
the tyranny, owing to his ruthless sacking of Leontium. From that time the
Syracusan leaders never ceased to go over to Marcellus and undertake to
deliver up the city to him whenever he wished. He would rather have taken it
by storm, but when all his attempts by sea and land failed, and he saw that
the thing was impossible, he chose as agents of the surrender an artisan
called Sosis and the Spaniard Moericus, rather than let the leaders of the
city, who had so often offered in vain to do so, undertake the task. No doubt
he considered that he would thus have more justification for plundering and
massacring the friends of Rome. Even if the revolt to Hannibal had been the
act of senate and people and not simply of Hieronymus; if it had been the
government of Syracuse who closed the gates against Marcellus, and not the
tyrants Hippocrates and Epicydes who had ousted the government; if we had
warred against Rome in the spirit and temper of the Carthaginians, what
greater severity could Marcellus have shown towards us than that which he
actually practiced, unless he had blotted Syracuse out from the face of the
earth? At all events, nothing has been left to us beyond our walls and our
houses stripped of everything, and the defaced and despoiled temples of our
gods, from which even the gods themselves and their votive offerings have
been carried off. Many have been deprived of their land, so that they have
not even the bare soil on which to support themselves, and all who belong to
them, with the remains of their wrecked fortunes. We beg and entreat you,
senators, if you cannot order all that we have lost to be restored to us, at
least to insist upon the restitution of what can be found and identified." After
they had stated their grievances, Laevinus ordered them to withdraw, that
their position might be discussed. "Let them stop," exclaimed Marcellus,
"that I may make my reply in their presence, since we who conduct war on
your behalf, senators, must do so on condition of those whom we have
vanquished coming forward as our accusers. Two cities have been taken this
year: let Capua call Fabius to account, and Syracuse, Marcellus."
