[6] With such arrogance and cruelty had the Locrians been treated by the Carthaginians after their revolt from the Romans that they could bear minor wrongs not only calmly but almost willingly. [7] In actual fact, however, so far did Pleminius surpass Hamilcar, commandant of the garrison, so far did the Roman soldiers in the garrison surpass the Carthaginians in [p. 239]villainy and greed that they seemed to be competing1 not in arms but in vices. [8] Of all the things that make the power of the stronger odious to the helpless man not one was overlooked by commander and soldiers in dealing with the townspeople. Unutterable insults were practised upon their own persons, upon their children, upon their wives. [9] It goes without saying that their avarice did not refrain from despoiling even sacred things. And not only were other temples desecrated, but also the treasure chambers of Proserpina,2 untouched in every age except that they were said to have been despoiled by Pyrrhus, who met with a signal punishment and restored the plunder gained by his sacrilege.3 [10] Consequently, just as formerly the king's ships, battered and wrecked, had landed nothing intact but the goddess' sacred money which they were trying to carry [11??] away, so on this occasion also, with a different kind of disaster that same money visited insanity upon all who had shared in that desecration of the temple, and mutually turned commander against commander, soldier against soldier, with the frenzy of enemies.