When the Romans captured a city after a siege, a period of intensive looting usually followed, in which the wealth and the inhabitants were taken as a right of conquest. The booty looted during warfare provided a welcome boost to state finances, as well as enriching the men who fought in the Roman army (and indeed may have been one of the major motivating factors for them to go to war in the first place). Looting was often carried out by ordinary soldiers from the army, who would usually be granted an official share in the spoils by their commander, in addition to any additional items they were able to hide away in secret while the looting took place.
Few of the surviving historical sources describe the looting of a captured city in any detail or give any indication of how the process was actually carried out – perhaps because the majority of readers would already have been familiar with what happened. Polybius’ description of the sack of Carthago Nova is the exception. His account is particularly
