minence which commanded a view of the country
and the city, ordered a cohort of Bruttians to approach the walls,
call out the leaders of the Locrians to a conference, and promising
them the friendship of Hannibal, exhort them to deliver up the city.
At first the Bruttians were not believed in any thing they stated in
the conference, but afterwards, when the Carthaginian appeared on the
hills, and a few who had fled back to the city brought intelligence
that all the rest of the multitude were in the power of the enemy,
overcome with fear, they said they would consult the people. An
assembly of the people was immediately called, when, as all the most
fickle of the inhabitants were desirous of a change of measures and a
new alliance, and those whose friends were cut off by the enemy
without the city, had their minds bound as if they had given hostages,
while a few rather silently approved of a constant fidelity than
ventured to support the opinion they approved, the city was
surrendered to the Carthaginians, with an appearance of perfect
unanimity. Lucius Atilius, the captain of the garrison, together with
the Roman soldiers who were with him, having been privately led down
to the port, and put on board a ship, that they might be conveyed to
Rhegium, Hamilcar and the Carthaginians were received into the city on
condition that an alliance should be formed on equal terms; which
condition, when they had surrendered, the Carthaginian had very nearly
not performed, as he accused them of having sent away the Roman
fraudulently, while the Locrians alleged that he had spontaneously
fled. A body of cavalry went in pursuit of the fugitives, in case the
tide might happen to detain them in the strait, or might carry the
ships to land. The persons whom they were in pursuit of they did not
overtake, but they descried some ships passing over the strait from
Messana to Rhegium. These contained Roman troops sent by the praetor,
Claudius, to occupy the city with a garrison. The enemy therefore
immediately retired from Rhegium. At the command of Hannibal, peace
was concluded with the Locrians on these terms: that "they should live
free under their own laws; that the city should be open to the
Carthaginians, the harbour in the power of the Locrians. That their
alliance should rest on the principle, that the Carthaginian should
help the Locrian and the Locrian the Carthaginian in peace and war."

2. Thus the Carthaginian troops were led back f