Pompey

Having determined upon this plan, they entrusted the execution of it to Achillas. So he took with him a certain Septimius, who had once been a tribune of Pompey’s, and Salvius besides, a centurion, with three or four servants, and put out towards the ship of Pompey. Now, all the most distinguished of Pompey’s fellow-voyagers had come aboard of her to see what was going on.

Accordingly, when they saw a reception that was not royal, nor splendid, nor in accordance with the hopes of Theophanes, but a few men sailing up in a single fishing-boat, they viewed this lack of respect with suspicion, and advised Pompey to have his ship rowed back into the open sea, while they were beyond reach of missiles. But meanwhile the boat drew near, and first Septimius rose up and addressed Pompey in the Roman tongue as Imperator.

Then Achillas saluted him in Greek, and invited him to come aboard the boat, telling him that the shallows were extensive, and that the sea, which had a sandy bottom, was not deep enough to float a trireme. At the same time some of the royal ships were seen to be taking their crews aboard, and men-at-arms were occupying the shore, so that there seemed to be no escape even if they changed their minds; and besides, this very lack of confidence might give the murderers an excuse for their crime.

Accordingly, after embracing Cornelia, who was bewailing his approaching death, he ordered two centurions to go into the boat before him, besides Philip, one of his freedmen, and a servant named Scythes, and while Achillas was already stretching out his hand to him from the boat, turned towards his wife and son and repeated the verses of Sophocles:—

1. Whatever man unto a tyrant takes his way,
2. His slave he is, even though a freeman when he goes.