previous next
17. There are some who maintain that in the region of Beneventum, by the river Calor, he had gone out of the camp with his lictors and three slaves to bathe, while enemies, as it [2??] happened, were hiding among the willows growing on the banks, and was slain, naked and unarmed and defending himself with stones which the river rolls along. [3] There are some writers who say that on the advice of the soothsayers he had gone five hundred paces from the camp to make atonement on an uncontaminated spot for the prodigies mentioned above, and was overpowered by two troops of Numidians who chanced to be in ambush there. So far are both the place and the manner of his death from being established, in spite of his eminence and distinction. [4] In regard to Gracchus's funeral also reports vary. Some relate that he was buried in the Roman camp by his own men, others —and this is the prevalent report —that [5] by Hannibal's order a pyre was erected directly outside the gate of the Carthaginian camp, and that the army defiled under arms, with dances by the Spanish troops and such movements of weapons and bodies as were customary for each tribe, while Hannibal himself [p. 411]honoured the obsequies with every tribute in act1 and word. [6] These are the statements of those who vouch for its occurrence in Lucania. If you incline to believe those who state that he was slain at the river Calor, the enemy gained possession of Gracchus' head only. [7] This being brought to Hannibal, Carthalo was at once sent by him to bring it to the Roman camp and Gnaeus Cornelius the quaestor. He conducted the funeral of the general in the camp, while the people of Beneventum joined with the army in doing him honour.

1 B.C. 212

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Summary (Latin, W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1884)
load focus Summary (Latin, Frank Gardener Moore, Professor Emeritus in Columbia University, 1940)
load focus Summary (English, Frank Gardener Moore, Professor Emeritus in Columbia University, 1940)
load focus English (D. Spillan, A.M., M.D., Cyrus Evans, 1849)
load focus Latin (Robert Seymour Conway, Charles Flamstead Walters, 1929)
load focus Latin (Frank Gardener Moore, Professor Emeritus in Columbia University, 1940)
load focus English (Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912)
load focus Latin (W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1884)
hide References (26 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (7):
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 31-32, commentary, 31.44
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 33-34, commentary, 33.46
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 35-38, commentary, 37.37
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 35-38, commentary, 38.17
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 43-44, commentary, 44.13
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 43-44, commentary, 44.45
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, book 45, commentary, 45.29
  • Cross-references to this page (12):
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (7):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: