Kitap 29
18
Even now the wrath of the goddess is not slow to visit your officers and soldiers. Frequently have they already engaged in pitched battles; Pleminius leading the one side, the military tribunes the other. They have fought quite as furiously with one another as they ever fought with the Carthaginians, and in their frenzy would have given Hannibal an opportunity of recapturing Locri if we had not sent for Scipio. Do not suppose that whilst the guilt of sacrilege drove the soldiers mad, the goddess did not manifest her wrath by punishing the leaders. It is just here where she manifested it most clearly. The tribunes were beaten with rods by their superior officer, afterwards he was caught unawares by them and, in addition to being hacked all over, his nose and ears were sliced off and he was left for dead. At length, recovering from his wounds, he placed the tribunes in irons and then, after flogging them and subjecting them to all the tortures that are inflicted on slaves, he put them to death and after they were dead forbade them to be buried. In this way is the goddess inflicting retribution upon the despoilers of her temple, nor will she cease to vex them with every kind of madness until the sacred hoard has once more been deposited in the shrine. Once when our ancestors were hard pressed in the war with Croto, they decided, as the temple was outside the city walls, to carry the treasure into the city. A voice was heard at night proceeding from the shrine and uttering a warning: 'Lay no hand upon it! The goddess will protect her temple.' Deterred by religious fears from moving the treasure, they wanted to build a wall round the temple. After it had been carried up some distance it suddenly collapsed. Often in the past has the goddess protected her temple and the seat of her presence, or else as at the present time she has exacted a heavy atonement from those who have violated it. But our wrongs she cannot avenge, nor can any one but you, senators; it is your honour that we invoke and your protection beneath which we seek shelter. To allow Locri to remain under that commander and those troops is, as far as we are concerned, the same as handing us over for punishment to all the rage of Hannibal and his Carthaginians. We do not ask you to accept what we say at once, in the absence of the accused or without hearing his defence. Let him appear, let him hear the charges against him, and let him rebut them. If there be any single crime that one man can be guilty of towards another, which that man has failed to commit against us, then we are willing to go through all our sufferings, if it is in our power to do so, once more, and ready to pronounce him void of all offence towards gods and men."
