Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 10, 2025
Three groups were made of the rest, consisting of Samnites, Romans, and Praenestines. The Romans, the women, and the children were spared. All the others, 12,000 in number, were massacred, and Praeneste was given over to pillage. It was betrayed to Lepidus by night; but the citizens stabbed and hung themselves or each other, and some locking themselves inside their houses, set them in flames.
Below and south of the city stretched fertile land easy of access to the Praenestines, and sufficiently distant from other strong Latin towns to be safe for regular cultivation.
They were not those old members of the Alban league, who reckoned themselves originally equal to, if not better than, the community of Rome, and who felt the dominion of Rome to be an oppressive yoke, as the fearfully rigorous measures of security taken against Praeneste at the beginning of the war with Pyrrhus, and the collisions that evidently long continued to occur with the Praenestines in particular, show.
There seems to be, however, very good reasons for saying that Praeneste never became a municipium in the strict legal sense of the word. It only salved the pride of the Praenestines, for it gave them a name which showed a former sovereign federated state, and not the name of a colony planted by the Romans. The cogency of this fourth reason will bear elaboration.
At that time Casilinum was occupied by five hundred Praenestines, with a few Romans and Latins, whom the news of the defeat at Cannae had brought to the same place.
Now if the name "Cornelia" grew to be a name in great disfavor in Praeneste, the reason would be plain enough. The destruction of the town, the loss of its ancient liberties, and the change in its government, are more than enough to assure hatred of the man who had been the cause of the disasters. And there is proof too that the Praenestines did keep a lasting dislike to the name "Cornelia."
Of the Praenestine prisoners, 12,000 in number, most of the Romans and individual Praenestines as well as the women and children were released, but the Roman senators, almost all the Praenestines and the whole of the Samnites, were disarmed and cut to pieces; and the rich city was given up to pillage.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking