Famous Cities VIII. — Capua

Nor, certes, shall I leave unsung Capua, mighty in tillage of fields and in fruits, in luxury, in wealth, and in earlier renown, who, despite Fortune's changing haps, relied on her prosperity and knew not how to keep the mean. Now she, once rival, is subject to Rome; now she keeps faith, once faithless — when, at a stand whether to flout or court the Senate, she dared to hope for magistrates chosen under Campanian auspices, and that with one consul from among her sons she might take up the empire over half the globe. Nay and she attacked the mistress of the world, the mother of Latium, trusting not in leaders who wore the toga. Sworn to Hannibal's allegiance, she, the beguiled, the seeming mistress, passed in her folly into slavery to a foe. Thereafter — when they were driven to their fall by the failings of them both, and came to ruin, the Carthaginians through luxury, the Campanians through pride (ah, never does arrogance find a firm-fixed throne!) — that city with her power and might of wealth, a second Rome once, who could rear her crest as high, is thrust backwards and scarce can manage to keep the eighth place.