Livy's History of Rome - Table of Contents

conditions. At that time he was one of Hannibal's soldiers, but he was recognised as a guest friend by the city of Saguntum.
He started on his mission, gave up his weapon openly to the guard, crossed the lines, and was at his request conducted to
the praetor of Saguntum. A crowd, drawn from all classes of society, soon gathered, and after a way had been cleared
through the press, Alorcus was admitted to an audience of the senate. He addressed them in the following terms:
[21.13]"If your fellow-townsman, Alco, had shown the same courage in bringing back to you the terms on which Hannibal
will grant peace that he showed in going to Hannibal to beg for peace, this journey of mine would have been unnecessary.
I have not come to you either as an advocate for Hannibal or as a deserter. But as he has remained with the enemy either
through your fault or his own - his own if his fears were only feigned, yours if those who report what is true have to
answer for their lives - I have come to you out of regard to the old ties of hospitality which have so long subsisted between
us, that you may not be left in ignorance of the fact that there do exist terms on which you can secure peace and the safety
of your lives. Now, that it is for your sake alone and not on behalf of any one else that I say what I am saying before you is
proved by the fact that as long as you had the strength to maintain a successful resistance, and as long as you had any
hopes of help from Rome, I never breathed a word about making peace. But now that you have no longer anything to hope
for from Rome, now that neither your arms nor your walls suffice to protect you, I bring you a peace forced upon you by
necessity rather than recommended by the fairness of its conditions. But the hopes, faint as they are, of peace rest upon
your accepting as conquered men the terms which Hannibal as conqueror imposes and not looking upon what is taken
from you as a positive loss, since everything is at the victor's mercy, but regarding what is left to you as a free gift from
him. The city, most of which he has laid in ruins, the whole of which he has all but captured, he takes from you; your
fields and lands he leaves you; and he will assign you a site where you can build a new town. He orders all the gold and
silver, both that belonging to the State and that owned by private individuals, to be brought to him; your persons and those
of your wives and children he preserves inviolate on condition that you consent to leave Saguntum with only two garments
apiece and without arms. These are the demands of your victorious enemy, and heavy and bitter as they are, your
miserable plight urges you to accept them. I am not without hope that when everything has passed into his power he will
relax some of these conditions, but I consider that even as they are you ought to submit to them rather than permit
yourselves to be butchered and your wives and children seized and carried off before your eyes."
[21.14]A large crowd had gradually collected to listen to the speaker, and the popular Assembly had become mingled with
the senate, when without a moment's warning the leading citizens withdrew before any reply was given. They collected all
the gold and silver from public and private sources and brought it into the forum, where a fire had already been kindled,
and flung it into the flames, and most of them thereupon leaped into the fire themselves. The terror and confusion which
this occasioned throughout the city was heightened by the noise of a tumult in the direction of the citadel. A tower after
much battering had fallen, and through the breach created by its fall a Carthaginian cohort advanced to the attack and
signalled to their commander that the customary outposts and guards had disappeared and the city was unprotected.
Hannibal thought that he ought to seize the opportunity and act promptly. Attacking it with his full strength, he took the
place in a moment. Orders had been given that all the adult males were to be put to death; a cruel order, but under the
circumstances inevitable, for whom would it have been possible to spare when they either shut themselves up with their
wives and children and burnt their houses over their heads, or if they fought, would not cease fighting till they were killed?
[21.15]An enormous amount of booty was found in the captured city. Although most of it had been deliberately destroyed
by the owners, and the enraged soldiers had observed hardly any distinctions of age in the universal slaughter, whilst all
the prisoners that were taken were assigned to them, still, it is certain that a considerable sum was realised by the sale of
the goods that were seized, and much valuable furniture and apparel was sent to Carthage. Some writers assert that
Saguntum was taken in the eighth month of the siege, and that Hannibal led his force from there to New Carthage for the
winter, his arrival in Italy occurring five months later. In this case it is impossible for P. Cornelius and Ti. Sempronius to
have been the consuls to whom the Saguntine envoys were sent at the beginning of the siege and who afterwards, whilst
still in office, fought with Hannibal, one of them at the Ticinus, both shortly afterwards at the Trebia. Either all the
incidents occurred within a much shorter period or else it was the capture of Saguntum, not the beginning of the siege,
which occurred when those two entered upon office. For the battle of the Trebia cannot have fallen so late as the year
when Cn. Servilius and C. Flaminius were in office, because C. Flaminius entered upon his consulship at Ariminum, his
election taking place under the consul Tiberius Sempronius, who came to Rome after the battle of the Trebia to hold the
consular elections, and, after they were over, returned to his army in winter quarters.
[21.16]The commissioners who had been sent to Carthage, on their return to Rome, reported that everything breathed a