Eustace, John Cretwode: A classical tour through Italy An. MDCCCII (Vol. 3): 3. ed., rev. and enl (London: J. Mawman, 1815)

Ch. IV.

THROUGH ITALY.

147

form, and if disinterred, might perhaps display
some remains of the grandeur for which it was
once celebrated. So great indeed was the mag-
nificence of Capua, that while Carthage stood it
was compared to it, and long after the fall of
Carthage, and even after its own humiliation and
disfranchisement, it is represented by Cicero*
himself as superior to Rome, for the wideness,
convenience, and appearance of its streets and
edifices.
Capua was built by the Etrurians, that sin-
gular nation to which Italy owes its arts, and its
noble tuition ; but it was occupied partly by force
and partly by treachery by the Samnites ; after-
wards it was united to the Romans by interest and
alliance; then it became hostile to Rome under
the influence of Annibal, and soon after it was
taken, plundered, and stripped of all the honors
of a city, that is, of its senate, its magistrates,
and its popular assemblies. In this chastisement
the Romans punished the body of the state, that
is, the ringleaders only, but spared the populace,
and the town itself, which continued to stand a
monument of the power, the justice, and the
clemency of the conquerors. <· Consilio ab omni
parte laudabili,” says Titus Livius f, “ severe et
* ii. contra Rullum. t xxvi. 16.
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