Ab urbe condita

The consul immediately sent some light-armed cohorts into the city, the rest of the army received orders to form an entrenched camp.

The soldiers who had entered the place broke open some of the houses and found a few old and sick people and such property left behind as they found too difficult to transport.

This was appropriated, and it was ascertained from the prisoners that several cities in the neighbourhood had mutually agreed to leave their homes, and the Romans would probably find the same solitude in other cities.

What the prisoners had said proved to be true, and the consul took possession of the abandoned towns.