The Romans, it is said, at the very moment that Hannibal was encamped before their city, were sending out reinforcements to the army in Spain; and the field which was occupied by the enemy, was sold at just as good a price as in the height of peace. It was not advisable for Hannibal to accept a battle: he had no stronghold whatever in his rear, while the Romans had behind them the unscaleable walls of the city. When he had stayed eight days before the town, and the Roman allies far and wide had not stirred, he broke up again, and retired by Antrodoco and Sulmo to Samnium and Apulia, going through the midst of hostile countries in which all the towns were shut against him, like a lion chased by the hunters, but unhurt. The object of his undertaking had been baffled; he was in that dismal plight, that with great objects and great means, he still wanted the very thing, however trifling it might have been, which could have brought about the result of those objects and means. In Capua, the distress had risen to the highest pitch, and the town wanted to capitulate; but the Romans demanded, that it should surrender unconditionally, on which the heads of the hostile party, Vibius Virrius and twenty-seven other senators, resolved to die. And indeed the result showed that they were right; for the Romans behaved with the most frightful cruelty. The whole senate of Capua, without any exception, were led in chains to Teanum, and the proconsul Q. Fulvius Flaccus wished not even to leave the decision to the Roman senate. But the proconsul Appius Claudius, to whom, as well as the other, the city had been yielded up, wished to save as many as he could, and he wrote to the senate, requesting them to institute a _causæ cognitio_. Flaccus however, foreseeing this, went to Teanum, and leaving unopened the letters received from the senate, ordered all the senators of Capua to be put to death. Jubellius Taurea, the bravest of the Campanians, whose heroism was acknowledged even by the Romans, killed his wife and children, and himself awaited his execution by the Romans. When the gates of Capua were opened, there is no doubt but that the inhabitants suffered all that the citizens of a town taken by storm have to suffer from the fury of the soldiers. Destroyed it was not; but all Campanians of rank were banished, most of them to Etruria; a great number of them were still executed as guilty, and even without any direct charge against them, they lost their property; the whole of the _ager Campanus_, all the houses and landed estates were confiscated; so that there remained nothing but the common, nameless rabble, and not a magistrate, besides foreigners and freedmen. The city was afterwards filled again with a new population of Roman citizens and others; a Roman præfect was sent thither to administer the law. Atella and Acerræ, the periœcians of Capua, had a like fate. From one of the Campanian towns, the whole of the population went over to Hannibal.