An enormous amount of booty was found in the captured city. Although most of it had been deliberately destroyed by the owners, and the enraged soldiers had observed hardly any distinctions of r-ge in the universal slaughter, whilst .all the prisoners that were taken were assigned to them, still, it is certain that a considerable sum was realised by the sale of the goods that were seized, and much valuable furniture .and apparel was sent to Carthage. Some writers assert that Saguntum was taken in the eighth month of the siege, and that Hannibal led his force from there to New Carthage for the winter, his arrival in Italy occurring five months later. In this case it is impossible for P. Cornelius .and Ti. Sempronius to have been the consuls to whom the Saguntine envoys were sent at the beginning of the siege and who afterwards, whilst still in office, fought with Hannibal, -one of them at the Ticinus, both shortly afterwards at the Trebia. Either all the incidents occurred within a much shorter period or else it was the capture of Saguntum, not the beginning of the siege, which occurred when those two entered upon office. For the battle of the Trebia cannot have fallen so late 'as the year when Cn. Servilius and C. Flaminius were in office, because C. Flaminius entered upon his consulship at Ariminum, his election taking place under the consul Tiberius Sempronius, who came to Rome after the battle of the Trebia to hold the consular elections, and, after they were over, returned .to his army in winter quarters.