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

20. The town of Casilinum was restored to the Campanians and defended by a garrison of seven hundred men from the army of Hannibal, that the Romans might not attack it when the Carthaginian should withdraw. [2] To the Praenestine soldiers the Roman senate voted double pay and exemption from service for five years. Though rewarded for their courage with the gift of Roman citizenship, they made no change.¹ [3] As to the fate of the Perusians the report is less clear, since no light has been thrown upon it either by any record of their own or by a decree of the Romans.

[4] At the same time the Petelini,² who alone among the Bruttians had remained in the friendship of Rome, were being attacked not only by the Carthaginians, who were holding the region, but also by the rest of the Bruttians for not making common cause with them. [5] Unable to withstand these dangers, the Petelini sent legates to Rome to ask for a garrison. The prayers of the legates and their tears —for when ordered to shift for themselves they gave way to tearful complaints before the entrance of the Senate House —stirred great compassion among senators and people. [6] And when consulted a second time by Marcus Aemilius, a praetor,³ the senators, after surveying all the resources of the empire, were [p. 71]compelled to admit that they themselves no longer⁴ had any means to protect distant allies. They ordered them to return home, and having fulfilled their obligation to the last, to shift for themselves for the future as best the situation permitted. [7] When this outcome of the embassy was reported at Petelia, such dejection and fear unexpectedly seized their senate that some proposed to flee, each taking any possible road, and to [8??] abandon the city, while others, since they had been deserted by their old allies, proposed to join the rest of the Bruttians and through them to surrender to Hannibal. [9] But those who thought nothing should be done hastily or rashly, and that they should deliberate again, prevailed. [10] When the matter was brought up in less excitement the following day, the optimates carried their point, that they should bring in everything from the farms and strengthen the city and the walls.⁵