Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 23
Frank Gardener Moore, Professor Emeritus in Columbia University, Ed.

18. Hannibal, being now not far away, sent his Gaetulians ahead under a prefect named Isalcas.. And he ordered him, if there should be an opportunity for a conference, at first by kind words to entice them to open the gates and admit a garrison; but if they persisted in their obstinacy, to use force and see if at some point he could make his way into the city. [2] When they approached the walls, because of the stillness they thought them deserted. And the barbarian, supposing the garrison had withdrawn in alarm, was preparing to force the gates and break open the bars, when suddenly [3??] the gates were opened and the two cohorts, drawn up inside for that very purpose, sallied out with a mighty uproar, and wrought havoc among the enemy. [4] The first troops being thus beaten back, Maharbal, who had been [p. 61]sent with a larger number of picked men, was¹ likewise unable to withstand the sally of the cohorts. [5] Finally Hannibal pitched his camp directly before the walls and prepared to assault the small city and small garrison with the greatest violence and with all his forces. And while he was pressing the attack, the walls being completely encircled by his men, he lost a considerable number, the most active at that, being hit by missiles from the wall and the towers. [6] When they actually sallied out once, he almost cut off their retreat by sending a column of elephants² against them, and drove them in alarm into the city, after a good number, for so small a force, had been slain. [7] More would have fallen if night had not interrupted the battle. On the next day all were fired to make the assault, especially after a mural crown of gold³ was displayed to them, and the general himself kept making their spiritless attack upon a fort on level [8??] ground a reproach to the captors of Saguntum,⁴ reminding them singly and collectively of Cannae and Trasumennus and Trebia. Then they began to push forward their sheds also and mines. [9] And to meet the different attempts made by the enemy no kind of activity, no ingenuity, proved lacking to the allies of the Romans. They set up defences to meet the sheds; by transverse mines they intercepted the enemy's mines; they forestalled his attempts both visible and invisible, until shame helped to divert Hannibal from his undertaking. [10] And after fortifying his camp and posting a small garrison, that the attempt might not appear to have been abandoned, he retired into winter-quarters at Capua.

There he kept under roofs for the greater part of [p. 63]the winter troops that had been hardened long and⁵ repeatedly against all human hardships, but had no experience or familiarity with comforts. [11] And so those whom no severe hardship had conquered were ruined by excess of comfort and immoderate pleasures and the more completely ruined the more eagerly they in their inexperience had plunged into them. [12] For sleep and wine, and feasts and harlots, and baths and idleness, which habit made daily more seductive, so weakened their bodies and spirits that it was their past victories rather than their present strength which thereafter protected them; and this was regarded among the military experts as a more serious failure in their commander than that he had not led his men from the field of Cannae forthwith to the city of Rome. [13] For that delay could be regarded as having merely retarded the victory, this mistake as having robbed him of the power to win. [14] And so in fact, just as if he were setting out from Capua with a different army, not a trace of the old-time morale survived. [15] For they came back most of them ensnared by harlots, and also as soon as they began to be quartered in tents, and the march and other tasks of the soldier followed, they would give out both in body and in spirit after the manner of recruits. [16] And afterwards through the whole season of summer camps a great many kept slipping away from their standards without furloughs; and deserters had no hiding-places other than Capua.⁶