At the same time that the consuls retired from Casilinum, their object having been accomplished, Gracchus, who was in Lucania, sent, under a prefect of the allies, some cohorts which he had levied in that country to ravage the lands of the enemy. These, as they were straggling in a careless manner, Hanno surprising, retorted upon his enemy a defeat not much less disastrous than he had himself received at Beneventum, and then hastily retired to the territory of the Bruttians, lest Gracchus should overtake him. Of the consuls, Marcellus returned to Nola, whence he had come, Fabius proceeded to Samnium to waste the lands, and recover by force the cities which had revolted. The Samnites of Caudium suffered the severest devastation; their fields were laid waste by fire for a wide extent, and both men and cattle were conveyed away as booty. The towns of Compulteria, Telesia, Compsa, Melae, Fulfulae, and Orbitanium, were taken by storm. Blandae, belonging to the Lucanians, and Aecae to the Apulians, were taken after a siege. Twenty-five thousand of the enemy were captured or slain in these towns, and three hundred and seventy deserters recovered; who, being sent to Rome by the consul, were all of them beaten with rods in the comitium, and thrown down from the rock. Such were the achievements of Fabius within the space of a few days. Ill health detained Marcellus from active operations at Nola. The town of Accua also was taken by storm, during the same period, by the praetor Quintus Fabius, whose province was the neighbourhood of Luceria; he also fortified a stationary camp at Ardonea. While the Romans were thus employed in different quarters, Hannibal had reached Tarentum, utterly destroying every thing whichsoever way he went. In the territory of Tarentum, the troops at length began to march in a peaceable manner. There nothing was violated, nor did they ever go out of the road; it was evident that this was done not from the moderation of the soldiery, or their general, but to conciliate the affections of the Tarentines. However, on advancing almost close to the walls without perceiving any movement, which he expected would occur on the sight of his vanguard, he pitched his camp about a mile off the city. Three days before the arrival of Hannibal, Marcus Livius, who had been sent by Marcus Valerius, the propraetor, commanding the fleet at Brundusium, had enlisted the young nobility of Tarentum, and stationing guards at every gate, and round the walls, wherever circumstances made it necessary, had kept such a strict watch both by day and night, as to give no opportunity for making any attempt either to the enemy or doubtful allies. On this account several days were consumed there to no purpose, when Hannibal, as none of those who had come to him at the lake Avernus, either came themselves or sent any letter or message, perceiving that he had carelessly followed delusive promises, moved his camp thence. Even after this he did not offer any violence to the Tarentine territory, not quitting the hope of shaking their allegiance to the Romans, though his simulated lenity had hitherto been of no advantage to him; but as soon as he came to Salapia he collected stores of corn there from the Metapontine and Heraclean lands; for midsummer was now past, and the situation pleased him as a place for winter quarters. From hence the Moors and Numidians were detached to plunder the territory of Sallentum, and the neighbouring woods of Apulia, from which not much booty of any other sort was obtained, but principally droves of horses, four thousand of which were distributed among his horsemen to be broken.
21
The Romans, since a war by no means to be despised was springing up in Sicily, and the death of the tyrant had furnished the Syracusans with more enterprising leaders, rather than changed their attachment to the Carthaginian cause, or the state of their minds, decreed that province to Marcus Marcellus, one of their consuls. After the assassination of Hieronymus, at first a tumult had taken place among the soldiery in the territory of the Leontines. They exclaimed furiously that the manes of the king should be appeased with the blood of the conspirators. Afterwards the frequent repetition of the word liberty, which was restored to them, a word so delightful to the ear, the hopes they had conceived of largesses from the royal treasury, and of serving in future under better generals, the relation of the horrid crimes and more horrid lusts of the tyrant, effected such an alteration in their sentiments, that they suffered to lie unburied the corpse of the king, whom a little before they regretted. As the rest of the conspirators remained behind, in order to keep the army on their side, Theodotus and Sosis, mounted on the king's horses, rode off to Syracuse with all possible speed, that they might surprise the king's party, while unacquainted with all that had occurred. But they were anticipated not only by report, than which nothing is swifter in such affairs, but also by a messenger who was one of the royal servants. In consequence, Andranodorus had occupied with strong garrisons the Insula and the citadel, and every other convenient part which he could. After sunset, when it was now growing dark, Theodotus and Sosis rode in by the Hexapylum, and displayed the royal vest stained with blood, and the ornament of the king's head; then passing through the Tycha, and calling the people at once to liberty and arms, bid them assemble in the Achradina. Some of the multitude ran out into the streets, some stood in the porches of their houses, while others looked out from the roofs and windows, and inquired what was the matter. Every part of the city was filled with lights and noises of various kinds. Assemblies of armed men were formed in the open spaces. Those who had no arms tore down from the temple of the Olympian Jupiter the spoils of the Gauls and Illyrians, which had been presented to Hiero by the Roman people, and hung up there by him; at the same time offering up prayers to Jupiter, that he would willingly, and without feeling offence, lend those consecrated weapons to those who were arming themselves in defence of their country, of the temples of their gods, and their liberty. This multitude was also joined by the watches which were stationed through the principal quarters of the city. In the island, Andranodorus, among other places, secured the public granaries by a garrison. This place, which was enclosed by a wall of stones hewn square, and built up on high, after the manner of a citadel, was occupied by a body of youth, who had been appointed to garrison it, and these sent messengers to the Achradina, to give information that the granaries and the corn were in the power of the senate.
22
At break of day the whole populace, armed and unarmed, assembled at the senate-house in the Achradina: where from the altar of Concord, which stood there, one of the nobles, named Polyaenus, delivered a liberal and temperate address. He said, that "men who had experienced servitude and contumely, were enraged against an evil which was well known, but that the Syracusans had rather heard from their fathers than seen with their own eyes the disasters which civil discord introduces." He said, "he commended them for the alacrity with which they had taken arms; but that he should commend them more if they should abstain from using them unless compelled by extreme necessity. At present he advised that ambassadors should be sent to Andranodorus, to charge him to submit to the direction of the senate and the people, to throw open the gates of the island, and withdraw the garrison. If he resolved to usurp the sovereignty of which he had been appointed guardian, that he would recommend that their liberty be recovered more energetically from Andranodorus than it had been from Hieronymus." From this assembly ambassadors were despatched. The senate began now to meet, which though during the reign of Hiero it had continued to be the public council of the state, from the time of his death up to the present had never been assembled or consulted upon any subject. When the ambassadors came to Andranodorus, he was himself moved by the unanimous opinion of his countrymen, by their having possession of other parts of the city, and by the fact that the strongest part of the island was betrayed and placed in the hands of others; but his wife, Demarata, the daughter of Hiero, still swelling with the pride of royalty and female presumption, called him out from the presence of the ambassadors, and reminded him of the expression so often repeated by the tyrant Dionysius, "that a man ought only to relinquish sovereign power when dragged by the feet, and not while sitting on horseback. That it was an easy thing, at any moment one pleased, to give up possession of grandeur, but that to create and obtain them was difficult and arduous. That he should obtain from the ambassadors a little time to deliberate, and to employ it in fetching the soldiers from the Leontines; to whom, if he promised the royal treasure, every thing would be at his disposal." This advice, suggested by a woman, Andranodorus neither entirely rejected nor immediately adopted, considering it the safer way to the attainment of power to temporize for the present. Accordingly he told the ambassadors to carry word back, that he should act subserviently to the senate and the people. The next day, as soon as it was light, he threw open the gates of the island, and came into the forum of the Achradina; then mounting the altar of Concord, from which Polyaenus had delivered his harangue the day before, he commenced a speech by soliciting pardon for his delay. "He had kept the gates closed," he said, "not as separating his own from the public interest, but from fear as to where the carnage would stop when once the sword was drawn; whether they would be satisfied with the blood of the tyrant, which was sufficient for their liberty, or whether all who were connected with the court, by consanguinity, affinity, or any offices, would, as implicated in another's guilt, be butchered. After he perceived that those who had liberated their country were desirous of preserving it when liberated, and that the counsels of all were directed towards the public good, he had not hesitated to restore to his country his own person and every thing else which had been committed to his honour and guardianship, since the person who had intrusted him with them had fallen a victim to his own madness." Then turning to the persons who had killed the tyrant, and calling on Theodotus and Sosis by name, he said, "You have performed a memorable deed, but believe me, your glory is only beginning, not yet perfected; and there still remains great danger lest the enfranchised state should be destroyed, if you do not provide for its tranquillity and harmony."
23
At the conclusion of this speech, he laid the keys of the gates and of the royal treasure at their feet; and on that day, retiring from the assembly in the highest spirits, they made supplication with their wives and children at all the temples of the gods. On the following day an assembly was held for the election of praetors. Andranodorus was created among the first; the rest consisted for the most part of the destroyers of the tyrant; two of these, Sopater and Dinomenes, they appointed in their absence. These, on hearing of what had passed at Syracuse, conveyed thither the royal treasure which was at Leontini, and put it into the hands of quaestors appointed for that purpose. The treasure also in the island and the Achradina was delivered to them, and that part of the wall which formed too strong a separation between the island and the other parts of the city, was demolished by general consent. Every thing else which was done was in conformity with this inclination of their minds to liberty. Hippocrates and Epicydes, on hearing of the death of the tyrant, which Hippocrates had wished to conceal even by putting the messenger to death, being deserted by the soldiery, returned to Syracuse, as that appeared the safest course under present circumstances; but lest if they appeared there in common they should become objects of suspicion, and looked upon as persons who were seeking an opportunity of effecting some change, they in the first place addressed themselves to the praetors and then through them to the senate. They declared, that "they were sent by Hannibal to Hieronymus, as to a friend and ally; that they had obeyed the orders of that man whom their general wished them to obey; that they desired to return to Hannibal; but as the journey would not be safe, as armed Romans were ranging at large through the whole of Sicily, that they requested to be furnished with some escort which might convey them in safety to Locri in Italy; and that thus they would confer a great obligation upon Hannibal, with little trouble." The request was easily obtained, for they were desirous of getting rid of these generals of the king, who were skilled in war, and at once necessitous and enterprising. But they did not exert themselves so as to effect what they desired with the requisite speed. Meanwhile these young men, who were of a military turn and accustomed to the soldiers, employed themselves in circulating charges against the senate and nobles, sometimes in the minds of the soldiers themselves, sometimes of the deserters, of which the greater part were Roman sailors, at other times of men belonging to the lowest order of the populace, insinuating, that "what they were secretly labouring and contriving to effect, was to place Syracuse under the dominion of the Romans with the pretence of a renewed alliance, and then that faction and the few promoters of the alliance would be supreme."