a
voluntary death; the remainder gave over the city to the discretion of
an implacably exasperated foe. Of course a bloody retribution had to
follow; the only discussion was as to whether the process should be
long or short: whether the wiser and more appropriate course was to
probe to the bottom the further ramifications of the treason even
beyond Capua, or to terminate the matter by rapid executions. Appius
Claudius and the Roman senate wished to take the former course; the
latter view, perhaps the less inhuman, prevailed. Fifty-three of the
officers and magistrates of Capua were scourged and beheaded in the
marketplaces of Cales and Teanum by the orders and before the eyes
of the proconsul Quintus Flaccus, the rest of the senators were
imprisoned, numbers of the citizens were sold into slavery, and the
estates of the more wealthy were confiscated. Similar penalties were
inflicted upon Atella and Caiatia. These punishments were severe;
but, when regard is had to the importance of the revolt of Capua
from Rome, and to what was the ordinary if not warrantable usage of
war in those times, they were not unnatural. And had not the citizens
themselves pronounced their own sentence, when immediately after their
defection they put to death all the Roman citizens present in Capua at
the time of the revolt? But it was unjustifiable in Rome to embrace
this opportunity of gratifying the secret rivalry that had long
subsisted between the two largest cities of Italy, and of wholly
annihilating, in a political point of view, her hated and envied
competitor by abolishing the constitution of the Campanian city.

Superiority of the Romans
Tarentum Capitulates

Immense was the impression produced by the fall of Capua, and all the
more that it had not been brought about by surprise, but by a two
years' siege carried on in spite of all the exertions of Hannibal.
It was quite as much a token that the Romans had recovered their
ascendency in Italy, as its defection some years before to Hannibal
had been a token that that ascendency was lost. In vain Hannibal had
tried to counteract the impression of this news on his allies by the
capture of Rhegium or of the citadel of Tarentum. His forced march
to surprise Rhegium had yielded no result. The citadel of Tarentum
suffered greatly from famine, after the Tarentino-Carthaginian
squadron closed the harbour; but, as the Romans with their much more
powerful fleet were able to cut off