or any other
place they pleased, provided they quitted Sicily, a reply was made to
them in a haughty manner, "that they had neither placed themselves at
the disposal of the Syracusans to make a peace for them with the
Romans, nor were they bound by the treaties of other people." This
answer the Syracusans laid before the Romans, declaring at the same
time that "the Leontines were not under their control, and that,
therefore, the Romans might make war on them without violating the
treaty subsisting between them; that they would also not be wanting in
the war, provided that when brought again under subjection, they
should form a part of their dominion, agreeably to the conditions of
the peace."

30. Marcellus marched with his entire forces against Leontini, having
sent for Appius also, in order that he might attack it in another
quarter; when, such was the ardour of the troops in consequence of the
indignation they felt at the Roman guards being put to the sword
during the negotiations for a peace, that they took the town by storm
on the first assault. Hippocrates and Epicydes, perceiving that the
enemy were getting possession of the walls and breaking open the
gates, retired with a few others into the citadel, from which they
fled unobserved during the night to Herbessus. The Syracusans, who had
marched from home with eight thousand troops, were met at the river
Myla by a messenger, who informed them that the city was taken. The
rest which he stated was a mixture of truth and falsehood; he said
that there had been an indiscriminate massacre of the soldiers and the
townsmen, and that he did not think that one person who had arrived at
puberty had survived; that the town had been pillaged, and the
property of the rich men given to the troops. On receiving such
direful news the army halted; and while all were under violent
excitement, the generals, Sosis and Dinomenes, consulted together as
to the course to be taken. The scourging and beheading of two thousand
deserters had given to this false statement a plausibility which
excited alarm; but no violence was offered to any of the Leontine or
other soldiers after the city was taken; and every man's property was
restored to him, with the exception only of such as was destroyed in
the first confusion which attended the capture of the city. The
troops, who complained of their fellow-soldiers having been betrayed
and butchered, could neither be induced to proceed to Leontini,