Book 31
13.15
For while the pursuers were trying to break open the bolted doors, they were assailed with arrows from a balcony of the house; and fearing through the inevitable delay to lose the opportunity for pillage, they piled bundles of straw and firewood about the house, set fire to them, and burned it men and all.
13.16
From it one of the bodyguard leaped through a window, but was taken by the enemy; when he told them what had happened, he filled them with sorrow at being cheated of great glory, in not having taken the ruler of the Roman empire alive. This same young man, having later escaped and returned secretly to our army, gave this account of what had occurred.
13.17
When Spain had been recovered, with a similar disaster the second of the Scipios,I.e., Cn. Cornelius Scipio Calvus, 212 B.C. Livy, xxv. 36, 13. we are told, was burned with a tower in which he had taken refuge and which the enemy had set on fire.Cf. Livy, xxv. 36, 13; Appian, Bell. Hisp. 3, 16 (Rom. Hist. vi. 3, 16). This much, at any rate, is certain, that neither Scipio nor Valens had the fortune of burialCf. Iliad, 456; Virg., Aen. xi. 22; Val. Max. iv. 4, 2. which is death’s final honour.
