rcements were to come from Tarentum and from the Samnites, all
agreed that there were more of the latter already within the walls than
they wished; but the young men of Tarentum, who were Greeks as well as
themselves, they earnestly longed for, as they hoped to be enabled by
their means to oppose the Samnites and Nolans, no less than to resist
their Roman enemies. At last a surrender to the Romans appeared to be
the lightest evil. Charilaus and Nymphius, the two principal men in the
state, consulting together on the subject, settled the part which each
was to act; it, was, that one should desert to the Roman general, and
the other stay behind to manage affairs in the city, so as to facilitate
the execution of their plan. Charilaus was the person who came to
Publilius Philo; he told him that "he had taken a resolution, which he
hoped would prove advantageous, fortunate, and happy to the Palaepolitans
and to the Roman people, of delivering the fortifications into his
hands. Whether he should appear by that deed to have betrayed or
preserved his country, depended on the honour of the Romans. That for
himself in particular, he neither stipulated nor requested any thing;
but, in behalf of the state, he requested rather than stipulated, that
in case the design should succeed, the Roman people would consider more
especially the zeal and hazard with which it sought a renewal of their
friendship, than its folly and rashness in deviating from its duty." He
was commended by the general, and received a body of three thousand
soldiers, with which he was to seize on that part of the city which was
possessed by the Samnites; this detachment was commanded by Lucius
Quinctius, military tribune.

26. At the same time also, Nymphius, on his part, artfully addressing
himself to the commander of the Samnites, prevailed upon him, as all the
troops of the Romans were employed either about Palaepolis or in Samnium,
to allow him to sail round with the fleet to the territory of Rome,
where he undertook to ravage, not only the sea-coast, but the country
adjoining the very city. But, in order to avoid observation, it was
necessary, he told him, to set out by night, and to launch the ships
immediately. That this might be effected with the greater despatch, all
the young Samnites, except the necessary guards of the city, were sent
to the shore. While Nymphius wasted the time there, giving contradictory
orders, designedly, to create confusion, which w