Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 42
Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. and Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D., Ed.

8. When the Ligurians, after this battle, had assembled in one place from their scattered flight, and they saw that a far greater number of their citizens was lost than saved —for there were not more than ten thousand of them —they surrendered, without, indeed, making any stipulations; [2] nevertheless they had hoped that the consul would treat them with no greater severity than former commanders had shown. But he disarmed them all, demolished their town, and sold them and all their property; then he sent dispatches to the senate reporting his achievement. [3] When Aulus Atilius the praetor had read them in the senate —for the other consul Postumius was absent, being busy in Campania with surveying the public lands —the [4] action seemed outrageous to the senate, that the Statellates, who alone of the Ligurians had not made war on the Romans, who even on this occasion had [5??] been attacked [p. 315]although they had not begun a war, who had entrusted¹ themselves to the good faith of the Roman people, should have been harassed and destroyed with every form of extreme cruelty, that so many thousands of innocent persons, calling upon the Roman people for protection, should have been sold —a [6] fate which established the worst possible precedent and issued a warning that no one should ever dare in the future to surrender —and, scattered in every direction, should, though at peace, be slaves to those who had once been downright enemies of the Roman people.² [7] For these reasons the senate decreed that the consul Marcus Popilius should restore to liberty the Ligurians themselves, returning the purchase-price to the purchasers, and should see to it that their property, such of it as could be recovered, should be given back to them; that their arms also should be returned to them; [8] and that all this should be done at the earliest possible moment; and that the consul should not leave his province until he had re-established the surrendered Ligurians in their homes. A truly glorious victory, they added, was won by defeating men in battle, not by torturing the distressed.