them and advanced to a depressed piece of ground lying between the camps.  Mummius seeing this secretly sent horsemen to assail them on the flank.  After these had attacked and thrown the enemy into confusion, he brought up the phalanx in front and caused considerable slaughter.  As a consequence Diaeus in despair killed himself, and of the survivors of the battle the Corinthians were scattered over the country, while the rest fled to their homes.  Hence the Corinthians within the wall believing that all their citizens had been lost abandoned the city, and it was empty of men when Mummius took it.  After that he won over without trouble both that nation and the rest of the Greeks.  He now took possession of their arms, all the offerings that were consecrated in their temples, the statues, paintings, and whatever other kind of ornament they had; and as soon as he could send his father and some other men to arrange terms for the vanquished he caused the walls of some of the cities to be taken down and declared them all to be free and independent except the Corinthians.  The dwellers in Corinth he sold, and confiscated their land and demolished their walls and all their houses besides, out of fear that some states might again unite with them, since they constituted the greatest state.  To prevent any of them from remaining hidden and any of the other Greeks from being sold as Corinthians he assembled everybody present before he had disclosed his determination, and after having his soldiers surround them in such a way as not to attract notice he proclaimed the enslavement of the Corinthians and the liberation of the remainder.  Then he instructed them all to take hold of any Corinthians standing beside them.  In this way he arrived at an accurate distinction.

Thus was Corinth overthrown.  The rest of the Greek world suffered temporarily from murders and levies of money, but afterward came to enjoy such immunity and prosperity that it used to be said:  “If they had not been taken captive as early as they were, they could not have been preserved.”

So this end simultaneously befell Carthage and Corinth, famous, ancient cities:  but at a much later date they received colonies of Romans, became again flourishing, and regained their original position.

The exploits of the Romans up to this point, found by me in ancient books that record these matters, written by men of old time, I have drawn thence in a condensed form and have embodied in the present history.  As for what comes next in order,—­the transactions of the consuls and dictators, so long as the government of Rome was still conducted by these officials,—­let no one censure me as having passed this by through contempt or indolence or antipathy and having left the history as it were incomplete.  The gap has not been overlooked by me through sloth, nor have I of my own free will left my task half finished, but through lack of books to describe the events.  I have frequently instituted a search for them, yet