He found himself obliged, for instance, to have one of the leaders of the aristocratic party in Capua, Decius Magius, who even after the entrance of the Phoenicians obstinately contended for the Roman alliance, seized and conveyed to Carthage; thus furnishing a demonstration, very inconvenient for himself, of the small value of the liberty and sovereignty which had just been solemnly assured to the Campanians by the Carthaginian general.

The Campanians, who marched to Hamae three miles from Cumae with a view to surprise the Cumaeans, were thoroughly defeated by Gracchus; Hannibal, who had appeared before Cumae to wipe out the stain, was himself worsted in a combat, and when the pitched battle offered by him was declined, retreated in ill humour to Capua.

Hannibal accordingly collected a considerable supply of grain, and directed the Campanians to receive it at Beneventum; but their tardiness gave the consuls Quintus Flaccus and Appius Claudius time to come up, to inflict a severe defeat on Hanno who protected the grain, and to seize his camp and all his stores.

After giving the Campanians information of his intention and exhorting them to hold out, he started with the relieving army from Capua and took the road for Rome.

Now despair seized high and low, Campanians and Phoenicians alike.

The whole soil, with the exception of a few possessions of foreigners or of Campanians well disposed towards Rome, was declared by the senate to be public domain, and was thereafter parcelled out to small occupiers on temporary lease.

If no recruiting officer made his appearance, they met of their own accord in free bands, with the view of pillaging the more peaceful districts and even of capturing and occupying towns, quite after the manner of the Campanians.

Titus, accordingly, sent two exconsuls to the Campanians to supervise the founding of settlements and bestowed upon the inhabitants money that came (besides various other sources) from those citizens that had died without heirs.

The Campanians revolt to Hannibal.

You must, therefore, Campanians, not assist us in the war, but almost take it upon yourselves in our stead.

After the consul had thus spoken, the ambassadors were dismissed; and as they were returning home, one of them, named Vibius Virius, observed, "that the time had arrived at which the Campanians might not only recover the territory once injuriously taken away by the Romans, but also possess themselves of the sovereignty of Italy.

The consul Laevinus, while passing by Capua, was surrounded by a multitude of Campanians, who besought him, with tears, that they might be permitted to go to Rome to the senate, so that if they could at length be in any degree moved by compassion, they might not carry their resentment so far as to destroy them utterly, nor suffer the very name of the Campanian nation to be obliterated by Quintus Flaccus.

Flaccus declared, that "he had individually no quarrel with the Campanians, but that he did entertain an enmity towards them on public grounds and because they were foes, and should continue to do so as long as he felt assured that they had the same feelings towards the Roman people; for that there was no nation or people on earth more inveterate against the Roman name.

That some of them had deserted to Hannibal, others had gone and set fire to Rome; that the consul would find the traces of the villany of the Campanians in the half-burnt forum.

That in his opinion it was extremely unsafe for any Campanians to be allowed to enter the walls of Rome."

Laevinus ordered the Campanians to follow him to Rome, after Flaccus had bound them by an oath to return to Capua on the fifth day after receiving an answer from the senate.

An audience of the senate was then granted to the Campanians.

The sentiments of all the rest of the Campanians towards us had been the same," he said, "as those of the Carthaginians; and those who had been decapitated by Fulvius, were the most conspicuous in rank, but not in guilt.

I do not see," said he, "how the senate can decide respecting the Campanians who are Roman citizens, without an order of the people.

I therefore give it as my opinion, that application should be made to the plebeian tribunes, that one or more of them should propose to the people a bill, by which we may be empowered to determine in the case of the Campanians."

They made the amount of income the ground on which they decided, whether the goods of the rest of the Campanians should be confiscated or not.

They ordered that all the Campanians, Atellanians, Calatinians, and Sabatinians, except such as were themselves, or whose parents were, among the enemy, should be free, with a proviso, that none of them should become a Roman citizen or a Latin confederate; and that none of those who had been at Capua while the gates were shut should remain in the city or territory of Capua after a certain day.

They sent the Campanians away, considerably more grieved than they were when they came, in consequence of these decrees; and now they no longer complained of the severity of Quintus Fulvius towards them, but of the malignity of the gods and their own accursed fortune.

It was said, that "the consuls, after having ruined the Sicilians and Campanians, had undertaken to destroy and lacerate the Roman commons; that, drained as they had been for so many years by taxes, they had nothing left but wasted and naked lands.

Dio in his Roman History 15: "For as a result of their position from very early times and their pristine friendship for the Romans, they would not endure to be punished, but the Campanians undertook to accuse Flaccus and the Syracusans Marcellus.