Kitap 27
16
The fighting in the forum commenced with an impetuosity which was not sustained. The Tarentine was no match for the Roman either in courage or weapons or military training or bodily strength and vigour. They hurled their javelins, and that was all; almost before they came to close quarters they turned and fled through the streets, seeking shelter in their own homes and in their friends' houses. Two of their leaders, Nico and Democrates, fell fighting bravely; Philemenus, who had been the prime agent in delivering the city up to Hannibal, rode at full speed out of the battle, but though his riderless horse was recognised soon afterwards whilst straying about the city, his body was nowhere found. It was commonly believed that he had been pitched headlong from his horse down an unprotected well. Carthalo the commandant of the garrison, had laid down his arms and was going to the consul to remind him of the old tie of hospitality between their fathers when he was killed by a soldier who met him. Those found with arms and those who had none were massacred indiscriminately, Carthaginians and Tarentines met the same fate. Many even of the Bruttians were killed in different parts of the town, either by mistake or to satisfy an old-standing hate, or to suppress any rumour of its capture through treachery, by making it appear as though it had been taken by storm. After the carnage followed the sack of the city. It is said that 30,000 slaves were captured together with an enormous quantity of silver plate and bullion, 83 pounds' weight of gold and a collection of statues and pictures almost equal to that which had adorned Syracuse. Fabius, however, showed a nobler spirit than Marcellus had exhibited in Sicily; he kept his hands off that kind of spoil. When his secretary asked him what he wished to have done with some colossal statues-they were deities, each represented in his appropriate dress and in a fighting attitude-he ordered them to be left to the Tarentines who had felt their wrath. The wall which separated the city from the citadel was completely demolished.
