armati per urbem victores implacabili odio victos consectabantur: plenae caedibus viae, cruenta fora templaque, passim trucidatis, ut quemque fors obtulerat. ac mox augescente licentia scrutari ac protrahere abditos; si quem procerum habitu et iuventa conspexerant, obtruncare nullo militum aut populi discrimine.
Translation :
Sword in hand, throughout the capital, the conquerors hunted down the conquered with merciless hatred. The streets were choked with carnage, the squares and temples reeked with blood, for men were massacred everywhere as chance threw them in the way. Soon, as their license increased, they began to search for and drag forth hidden foes. Whenever they saw a man tall and young they cut him down, making no distinction between soldiers and civilians.
Edition :
Historiae. Cornelius Tacitus. Charles Dennis Fisher. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1911.
Complete Works of Tacitus. Tacitus. Alfred John Church. William Jackson Brodribb. Sara Bryant. edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc. Random House, Inc. 1873. reprinted 1942.
Notes :
The killings are soon also motivated by greed, described in: "Soldiers of Vespasian break into homes for plunder and kill resisting Romans."
