First, it’s worth pointing out that Livy pairs the Romans’ capture and treatment of Capua with the Romans’ capture and treatment of Syracuse, both of which occurred in 210 BCE. One of the ways that he pairs the two cities is through the narrative: Livy places the Senate’s deliberation of how to treat Syracuse (26.30) immediately prior to their decision of how to treat Capua (26.33). There are other parallels as well, in particular the contrast in how the armies treated the two cities. At Syracuse, the Roman commander Marcus Marcellus oversaw the looting of what Livy describes as one of the greatest cities in the world (likely a bit of hyperbole on his part to make Rome seem even greater). On the other hand, at Capua, the Romans were disciplined enough to leave the city alone, even though they hated the Capuans because they had so willingly betrayed them to the Carthaginians.
What did the Romans decide to do with the Capuans? Well, it’s a bit complicated because Livy himself says that “decrees were passed for individual Capuan households, but it is not worth the while to list them all” (trans. Yardley 26.34). This description is interesting because it stress just how much of an aristocracy both Rome and Capua were: the familial politics very much influenced how the Romans decided to treat certain people. The other interesting thing about this line is that it suggests that Livy had access to the all of the decrees but has chosen to only record some of them, suggestive that he had good sources for this event (unlike some of the other events that Livy reports).
Well, what does Livy say?
“Some faced expropriation of their property, and being sold into slavery along with their wives and children, exception being made for daughters who had married outside the community before they became subject to the jurisdiction of the Roman people. Others were to be imprisoned, with discussion of their eventual fate left until later. In the case of others, the senators used classifications based on their property assessment to determine whether or not they should be dispossessed. They also voted that farm animals that had been captured, apart from horses, should be returned to their owners; and the same was to apply to slaves, apart from adults of the male sex, and to all property not attached to the ground.” (26.34).
Livy reveals the immediate problem that Rome hoped to address with those male slaves in 26.35: the government is running into problems funding the navy, and is again asking for private citizens to fund the construction of ships, as well as to donate slaves. It is also interesting to think about how those Capuan slaves fared in Rome with their identity as belonging to a group of people who sold out the Romans. I can only imagine that many of them got sent to the mills.