Though the standard of revolt no longer waved defiance against established government from the walls of Rome, and though the populace seemed to be desirous of atoning by the humblest submission for the outrages which they had lately committed, not only against the authority, but also against the person of their sovereign, Eugenius did not yet venture to revisit his capital. He wisely dreaded the effects of that agitation which usually accompanies the subsiding of the stormy sea of political contention. It was also the opinion of his counsellors, that it was necessary to punish the ringleaders of the late revolt with the utmost severity; and he perhaps thought that those princes act consistently with the dictates of prudence, who, whilst they personally interpose in the performance of beneficent and merciful actions, delegate to inferior agents the odious task of inflicting the sanguinary penalties of political vengeance. He accordingly instructed Vitelleschi to take such measures as he should deem necessary for the extinction of the latent sparks of rebellion. For the purposes of severity he could not have selected a fitter instrument than Vitelleschi, a man of haughty demeanour, a bigotted assertor of the rights of established power, whose promptitude in action was guided by the dictates of a cool head, and an obdurate heart. When the inhabitants of the pontifical states were informed that their destiny was committed to the disposal of this merciless ecclesiastic, they were struck dumb with fear;[238] and suspicion and terror spread a gloom over the whole of the papal dominions. No long space of time intervened before the threatening cloud burst upon the heads of the Colonnas and their partizans. Vitelleschi, personally assuming the command of a body of troops, laid siege to the fortresses which sheltered the despairing remnant of rebellion. In the course of a few weeks he took and sacked Castel Gandolfo, Sabello, Borghetto, Alba, Città Lanuvie, and Zagarola. All the inhabitants of these places who survived the carnage which occurred at their capture he carried in chains to Rome. On his return to the capital he proceeded to level with the ground the houses of the principal insurgents. Determined by still severer measures to strike terror into the enemies of the pontiff, he seized one of the ringleaders of the late revolt, and after publicly exposing him to the horrible torture of having his flesh torn with red hot pincers, he terminated his sufferings, by causing him to be hanged in the Campo di Fiore. At the same time, with a view of ingratiating himself with the populace, who dreaded the horrors of approaching famine, he imported into the city an abundant supply of provisions. By this alternate exercise of severity and conciliation, he at length completely re-established the authority of the pontiff in Rome.[239]