Capua

Capua is presented as a conquered city whose destruction became an example of permanent political control. In the comparison between Spartan and Roman methods of governing acquired free cities, Capua stands for the Roman conviction that a community accustomed to its own laws and liberty could not be safely held through partial supervision alone. Its fate gives concrete force to the argument that conquest is not complete until the conquered city’s capacity to organize resistance has been removed.

Capua in the Theory of Conquered Free Cities

The discussion of Capua belongs to the treatment of cities and provinces that had previously lived under their own laws and in freedom. Such places could be governed in three ways: they could be destroyed; the conquering Prince could reside in them personally; or they could be allowed to retain their laws while being subjected to tribute and placed under the administration of a small group of inhabitants dependent on the conqueror. The third arrangement might appear economical and conciliatory, but it left the city’s civic memory and institutional identity intact.

Capua therefore appears within a broader distinction between territories accustomed to obeying a Prince and communities formed by self-government. A population long governed by a hereditary ruler may be unable to agree on a new leader after the ruling line is extinguished, making it comparatively vulnerable to an outside power. A republic or free city presents a different problem: its memory of former liberty produces a stronger vitality, fiercer hatred, and keener desire for revenge. Capua is grouped with other cities whose political existence made them dangerous to preserve in an only partially conquered condition.

Roman Destruction of Capua

The Romans are said to have retained Capua, Carthage, and Numantia by destroying them. The statement is stark because it joins possession directly to physical and political elimination: these cities were never lost after Rome adopted this method. Capua is not described through a separate battle or a detailed sequence of local events; instead, its significance lies in the outcome attributed to the Roman policy. The city’s destruction prevented the revival of its former civic order from becoming a rallying point against Roman authority.

This Roman example is set against the Spartan treatment of Athens and Thebes. Sparta sought to hold those cities by creating oligarchies, thereby leaving a managed version of their political life in place, but eventually lost them. Rome’s treatment of Capua demonstrates the harsher alternative. Rather than relying on a dependent local government to preserve the conqueror’s position, Rome removed the city’s ability to act as an autonomous political center.

Memory, Liberty, and Political Security

Capua’s importance extends beyond the immediate act of conquest because the argument treats political memory as an active force. A city that has lived in freedom can preserve the name of liberty and its ancient laws even after a long period of subjection. Benefits and the passage of time do not necessarily erase that memory. When misfortune comes upon the occupying power, the old political identity can be turned against it and become the language through which rebellion justifies itself.

The example of Pisa’s rising against the Florentines after a hundred years of servitude reinforces the same principle. Capua, Carthage, and Numantia represent the preventative logic of destruction; Pisa represents the danger of leaving a conquered community dispersed neither in population nor in political memory. In this framework, Capua is not merely a location in Roman history. It is evidence for the claim that the safest way to hold a free city is either to destroy it or to live in it, because indirect control leaves the old order available for future mobilization.

Historical and Comparative Significance

Capua helps establish that the difficulty of retaining a conquest depends not only on the ability of the conqueror but also on the political character of the acquired state. The same work contrasts Alexander the Great’s conquest of Asia with the problems faced by conquerors of territories composed of many small principalities. Alexander could secure Asia because its government resembled that of the Turk: after the sovereign was defeated and the ruling authority removed, there were no independent barons with their own subjects and inherited claims to rally resistance. The successors’ later troubles arose from their ambition and mutual jealousy rather than from a general revolt of the country.

Capua belongs to the opposite analytical category. Its example shows why a free or self-governing city could not be treated as though it were merely an extension of a centralized monarchy. The Roman method was therefore not presented as a universal act of military brutality detached from political calculation, but as a response to the distinctive danger posed by civic freedom. Alongside the contrasting cases of Athens, Thebes, Greece, and Pisa, Capua demonstrates how conquest, institutional continuity, and collective memory determine whether a newly acquired territory remains secure or eventually becomes the source of its conqueror’s undoing.