driven in different
directions, carrying off his mangled body on each carriage, where the
limbs had remained hanging to the cords. All turned away their eyes
from so shocking a spectacle. That was the first and last instance
among the Romans of a punishment which established a precedent that
showed but little regard for the laws of humanity. In other cases
we may boast that no other nation has approved of milder forms of
punishment.[28]

Meanwhile the cavalry had already been sent on to Alba, to transplant
the people to Rome. The legions were next led thither to demolish the
city. When they entered the gates, there was not indeed such a tumult
or panic as usually prevails in captured cities, when, after the gates
have been burst open, or the walls levelled by the battering-ram, or
the citadel taken by assault, the shouts of the enemy and rush of
armed men through the city throws everything into confusion with fire
and sword: but gloomy silence and speechless sorrow so stupefied the
minds of all, that, through fear, paying no heed as to what they
should leave behind, what they should take with them, in their
perplexity, making frequent inquiries one of another, they now stood
on the thresholds, now wandering about, roamed through their houses,
which they were destined to see then for the last time. When now the
shouts of the horsemen commanding them to depart became urgent, and
the crash of the dwellings which were being demolished was heard in
the remotest parts of the city, and the dust, rising from distant
places, had filled every quarter as with a cloud spread over them;
then, hastily carrying out whatever each of them could, while they
went forth, leaving behind them their guardian deity and household
gods,[29] and the homes in which each had been born and brought up, an
unbroken line of emigrants soon filled the streets, and the sight of
others caused their tears to break out afresh in pity for one another:
piteous cries too were heard, of the women more especially, as they
passed by their revered temples now beset with armed men, and left
their gods as it were in captivity. After the Albans had evacuated the
town, the Roman soldiery levelled all the public and private buildings
indiscriminately to the ground, and a single hour consigned to
destruction and ruin the work of four hundred years, during which
Alba had stood. The temples of the gods, however--for so it had been
ordered by the king--were spared.

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