Angell, Samuel: Sculptured metopes discovered amongst the ruins of the ancient city of Selinus in Sicily by William Harris and Samuel Angell in the year 1823 (London, 1826)

21
;m entrance into the city, and after a severe conflict in the
streets and passages, where every foot of ground was disputed
with desperation, at length made then- way to the market-place,
where the last of the valiant defenders of the city fell combat-
ing. The barbarians now masters of the city, it was delivered
over to all the horrors of pillage and massacre. Sixteen thou-
sand of the Selinuntians had fallen ; and of those who survived
the carnage, and to whom the fate of then- slain kindred ap-
peared an enviable lot, six hundred were carried away into
Africa, to end their days in slavery. Two thousand six hundred
escaped by flight, and sought refuge at Agrigentum, where they
met with every kind attention which compassion for their de-
plorable fate could suggest. The walls of the city were levelled
with the ground, and of the edifices some were burnt, the rest
demolished'.

The Selinuntians who escaped to Agrigentum, were there
met by a body of chosen troops from Syracuse, who had been
dispatched with all haste to the relief of the besieged city.
These, on being apprised of the fate of Selinus, sent messengers
to Hannibal, proposing to treat for the ransom of the prisoners,
and conjuring him to respect the temples of the gods. The
haughty conqueror replied, that the Selinuntians, incapable of
defending their liberty, deserved the lot of slaves; that the
gods, in wrath with the inhabitants, had already abandoned their
city*.

' For a more minute account of this siege, sec the interesting description