Book 3
86
Feeling now entirely confident of success, Hannibal rejected the idea of approaching Rome for the present; but traversed the country plundering it without resistance, and directing his march towards the coast of the Adriatic. Hannibal’s advance after the battle. Having passed through Umbria and Picenum, he came upon the coast after a ten days’ march with such enormous booty, that the army could neither drive nor carry all the wealth which they had taken, and after killing a large number of people on his road. For the order was given, usual in the storming of cities, to kill all adults who came in their way; an order which Hannibal was prompted to give now by his deep-seated hatred of Rome.This treatment of non-combatants was contrary to the usages of civilised warfare even in those days, and seems to have been the true ground for the charge of crudelitas always attributed to Hannibal by Roman writers, as opposed to the behaviour of such an enemy as Pyrrhus (Cic. de Am. 28). It may be compared to the order of the Convention to give no quarter to English soldiers, which the French officers nobly refused to execute.
