ABSTRACT
As was said at the outset, passages providing a whole range of connotations of diripio and its derivatives are few and refer to unusual cases. Two passages in Livy are essential. One is the account of the sack of Victumulae by Hannibal’s army in 218 (Livy, 21. 57. 13-14):
The other, under 204, is a complaint to the senate by ambassadors from Locri against the Roman garrison stationed in their city (Livy, 29. 17. 15-16):
The impression given by these passages is that direptio consisted in letting the soldiers loose, in giving them unrestricted freedom to loot, rape and slaughter. An urbs direpta would thus have been a city which had fallen prey to troops who were at liberty to do anything and everything they wanted, exactly as in the most detailed extant account of a Roman direptio, the sack of Cremona:
The question is, however, how typical was the image of direptio conveyed in these texts. The account of the fate of Victumulae-the first Roman town taken by Hannibal-could well be an illustration of the Carthaginian’s alleged ‘inhuman cruelty, perfidy worse than Punic’ (Livy, 21. 4. 9). The Locri episode is not an account of an actual event, but an accusation put into the mouth of the most interested party, the victims of the soldiers’ licence; what is more, these particular charges were grossly exaggerated (Ziolkowski 1982). In the account of the fall of Cremona we have a clear-cut case of the soldiers’ disobedience. What worth should we attach, then, to these passages?
