History of Rome

​While Capua was being especially invested with ramparts, the siege of Syracuse came to an end, aided not only by the force and courage of the general and the army, but also by internal treachery.

​For Marcellus, at the beginning of spring, was uncertain whether he should turn the war toward Agrigentum against Himilco and Hippocrates, ​or press Syracuse with a siege, although he saw that the city, impregnable by its land and sea situation, could not be taken either by force or by hunger, as supplies, almost free from Carthage, nourished them; ​nevertheless, lest he should leave anything untried, he ordered the Syracusan deserters—there were indeed among the Romans some very noble men who had been expelled during the defection from the Romans because they shrank from the new plans—to test the minds of the people by conferences of their own party, and to give assurance that, if Syracuse were delivered up, they would live free and under their own laws.

​There was no opportunity for conference, because the suspected minds of many had turned the attention and eyes of all to prevent any such attempt from passing unnoticed.

​A single slave of the exiles, admitted into the city as a deserter, having met with a few, made a beginning of talking about such a matter. Then some men, covered with nets in a fishing boat, were carried around in this way to the Roman camp and talked with the deserters, and the same men did so more often in the same way, and others and still others. Finally they amounted to nearly eighty.

​And when everything was already prepared for the betrayal, a disclosure having been made to Epicydes by a certain Attalus, who was indignant that the matter had not been entrusted to him, they were all put to death with torture.

​Immediately after this hope had turned out vain, another hope succeeded. A certain Damippus, a Lacedaemonian, sent from Syracuse to King Philip, had been captured by Roman ships.

​Epicydes also had an immense concern for ransoming him, nor did Marcellus refuse, as the Romans were already at that time affecting the friendship of the Aetolians, with whom the Lacedaemonians were allies.

​To those sent for the conference about his ransom, a place most central and convenient for both parties seemed to be near the port of Trogilus, beside the tower which they call Galeagra.

​As they came and went there rather frequently, one of the Romans, contemplating the wall from close by, by counting the stones and estimating by himself what each one measured in front, ​measured the height of the wall as nearly as conjecture could, and, thinking it to be considerably lower than his own previous opinion and that of all others, and surmountable even by moderate ladders, reported the matter to Marcellus.

​The matter seemed not to be despised. But since the place could not be approached, because for that very reason it was more intensely guarded, an opportunity was sought;

​which a deserter offered, announcing that a festival of Diana was being celebrated for three days, and because other things were lacking in the siege, the feast was being celebrated with wine more abundantly, provided by Epicydes to the entire populace and distributed through the tribes by the leading men.

​When Marcellus received this news, having conferred with a few of the military tribunes and selected through them centurions and soldiers fit for executing and daring such a great undertaking, and having prepared ladders in secret, he ordered the signal to be given to the rest to take refreshment early and give themselves to rest, as they had to go on an expedition by night.

​Then, when it seemed to be that time of night when, after feasting during the day, satiety of wine and the beginning of sleep would now possess them, he ordered the soldiers of one standard to carry the ladders; and about a thousand armed men in a thin column were led there in silence.

​When the first, without noise or tumult, climbed up onto the wall, others followed in order, since the boldness of the first gave courage even to those who hesitated.