For, besides the communication between the two posts of the enemy being cut off, by the besiegers having possession of part of the works through which it had been carried on, they now suffered within the walls hardships far more grievous than those with which the enemy threatened them, and as if made prisoners by their own garrison, they were now subjected to the greatest indignities in the persons of their wives and children, and to such extremities as are generally felt on the sacking of cities.

When, therefore, intelligence arrived that reinforcements 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.