[38]
Knowing that the defenders of Athens were severely pressed by hunger, that they had devoured all their cattle, boiled the hides and skins, and licked what they could get therefrom, and that some had even partaken of human flesh, Sulla directed his soldiers to encircle the city with a ditch so that the inhabitants might not escape secretly, even one by one. This done, he brought up his ladders and at the same time began to break through the wall. The feeble defenders were soon put to flight, and the Romans rushed into the city. A great and pitiless slaughter ensued in Athens, the inhabitants, for want of nourishment, being too weak to fly. Sulla ordered an indiscriminate massacre, not sparing women or children. He was angry that they had so suddenly joined the barbarians without cause, and had displayed such violent animosity toward himself. Most of the Athenians when they heard the order given rushed upon the swords of the slayers voluntarily. A few had taken their feeble course to the Acropolis, among them Aristion, who had burned the Odeum, so that Sulla might not have the timber in it at hand for storming the Acropolis. Sulla forbade the burning of the city, but allowed the soldiers to plunder it. In many houses they found human flesh prepared for food. The next day Sulla sold the slaves at auction. To the freemen who had escaped the slaughter of the previous night, a very small number, he promised their liberty but took away their right as voters and electors because they had made war upon him. The same terms were extended to their offspring.
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Appian. The Foreign Wars. Horace White. New York. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1899.
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