ave
been captured; an immense quantity of silver, wrought and coined;
eighty-three thousand pounds of gold; of statues and pictures so many
that they almost equalled the decorations of Syracuse. But Fabius,
with more magnanimity than Marcellus, abstained from booty of that
kind. When his secretary asked him what he wished to be done with the
statues of their gods, which are of immense size and represented as
fighting, each having his peculiar habit, he gave orders that their
angry gods should be left in the possession of the Tarentines. After
this, the wall which separated the city from the citadel was razed and
demolished. While things were going on thus at Tarentum, Hannibal,
to whom the troops engaged in the siege of Caulonia had surrendered
themselves, hearing of the siege of Tarentum, marched with the
greatest expedition both night and day; but hearing that the city was
taken, as he was hastening to bring assistance to it, he exclaimed,
"the Romans too have their Hannibal. We have lost Tarentum by the same
arts by which we took it." However, that he might not appear to have
turned his army in the manner of a fugitive, he encamped where he
had halted, about five miles from the city. After staying there a
few days, he retired to Metapontum, from which place he sent two
Metapontines with letters from the principal men in the state to
Fabius at Tarentum, to the effect, that they would accept of his
promise that their past conduct should be unpunished, on condition
of their betraying Metapontum together with the Carthaginian garrison
into his hands. Fabius, who supposed that the communication they
brought was genuine, appointed a day on which he would go to
Metapontum, and gave the letters to the nobles, which were put into
the hands of Hannibal. He, forsooth, delighted at the success of his
stratagem, which showed that not even Fabius was proof against his
cunning, planted an ambuscade not far from Metapontum. But when Fabius
was taking the auspices, before he took his departure from Tarentum,
the birds more than once refused approval. Also, on consulting the
gods after sacrificing a victim, the aruspex forewarned him to be on
his guard against hostile treachery and ambuscade. After the day fixed
for his arrival had passed without his coming, the Metapontines were
sent again to encourage him, delaying, but they were instantly seized,
and, from apprehension of a severer mode of examination, disclosed the
plot.

17. In