Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 24
Frank Gardener Moore, Professor Emeritus in Columbia University, Ed.

45. To that camp came Dasius Altinius of Arpi secretly by night with three slaves, promising that if rewarded he would betray Arpi.¹ [2] When Fabius brought the matter before the council, the others thought that as a deserter he should be scourged and put to death, a waverer and an enemy to both sides, who after the disaster at Cannae, as if loyalty should side with success, had gone over to Hannibal and dragged Arpi into revolt. [3] But now, because, contrary to his expectation and his wishes, the Roman state seemed to be springing up again, as it were from the roots, he was promising to present the betrayed with a new betrayal, and always taking part with one side, but with the other in heart, faithless as an ally, inconstant as an enemy. To the betrayers of Falerii² and of Pyrrhus³ he should be added as a third example to deserters. [4] On the contrary the consul's father Fabius said that men were forgetting the situation, when they exercised free judgment in each individual case in the midst of the heat of war, as though in peace, the result was that, although [5??] the thing to be done and to be borne in mind was rather to prevent any allies-if this was somehow possible from abandoning the Roman people, they were not bearing that in mind. On the contrary, they were saying that, if a man came to his senses and turned his eyes to the previous alliance, he ought to be made a [p. 321]warning example. [6] If then it was permissible to leave⁴ the Romans, but not to return to them, who could doubt that soon the Roman state, despaired of by the allies, would see the whole of Italy joined together by Carthaginian treaties? [7] For himself, however, he was not the man to think that any trust should be placed in Altinius, but would follow a middle course. [8] He thought it best, namely, that Altinius should not be treated as either enemy or ally for the present, that under qualified arrest he should be guarded for the duration of the war in some loyal city-state not far from the camp. When the war was over they should then deliberate whether his previous defection deserved punishment more than his present return merited pardon. They agreed with Fabius, and the man was turned over to representatives of Cales, himself and his companions. [9] And it was ordered that the gold —and the weight of it was considerable —which he had then brought with him should be kept for him. [10] At Cales he was free to go about by day followed by guards, at night confined and watched by them. At Arpi it was in his house that he was first missed and search for him began. [11] Then the report spreading through the city caused the usual commotion when a leading man is missing, and for fear of a rebellion they at once sent messengers.⁵ [12] The Carthaginian was by no means displeased at this news, since he had long regarded the man himself with suspicion, as unsettled in his loyalty, and also he now had an excuse for taking possession of the property of a man of such wealth and selling it. [13] But that men might believe he was yielding to anger rather than greed, he added cruelty also to avarice, that is, he summoned [14??] the wife and children to the camp, and, [p. 323]after investigating first the flight of Altinius, then⁶ how much gold and silver had been left in his house, now fully informed, he burned them alive.