Note 12 — Chapter XIII

The end of Numantia is rather differently related by Appian, who says, that after being reduced to such extremity as to eat human flesh, they surrendered at discretion, and were sold as slaves; Scipio retaining fifty of them to grace his triumph. The desperate resolution of the Saguntines, also a Spanish people, confirms the probability of Florus’s version. Pressed by Hannibal, the elders of the city collected the most valuable property, both public and private, into a pile, which they consumed by fire, and for the most part threw themselves into the flames. The other male inhabitants slew their wives and children, set fire to their houses, and perished in them, or else fighting to the death.