Book 24
3
The citadel of Croto, which overhung the sea on one side and on the other faced the land, was formerly protected by its natural position; afterwards it was further protected by a wall, on the side where Dionysius, the Sicilian tyrant, had captured it by stratagem, scaling it on the side away from the sea. It was this citadel that the aristocrats of Croto now occupied, regarding it as a fairly safe stronghold, while the populace in conjunction with the Bruttians besieged them. At last the Bruttians saw that they could never take the place in their own strength, and found themselves compelled to appeal to Hanno for help. He tried to bring the Crotonians to a surrender on condition that they would admit a Bruttian colony and allow their city, wasted and desolate as it was by war, to recover its ancient populousness. Not a single man amongst them, except Aristomachus, would listen to him. They said that they would sooner die than be mingled with Bruttians and change to alien ceremonies, customs, and laws, and soon even to a foreign speech. Aristomachus, finding himself powerless to persuade them to surrender and not getting any opportunity of betraying the citadel as he had betrayed the city, went off by himself to Hanno. Shortly after some envoys from Locri, who had, with Hanno's permission, obtained access to the citadel, persuaded them to suffer themselves to be transferred to Locri instead of facing the last extremity. They had already sent to Hannibal and obtained his consent to this course. So they left Croto and were conducted to the sea and put on board ship and sailed in a body for Locri. In Apulia even the winter did not pass quietly so far as the Romans and Hannibal were concerned. Sempronius was wintering at Luceria and Hannibal not far from Arpi; skirmishes took place between them as occasion offered or either side saw its opportunity, and these brushes with the enemy made the Romans more efficient every day and more familiar with the cunning methods of their opponents.
