Sertorius

Well, then, most of the Iberians immediately went away, sent ambassadors to Pompey and Metellus, and delivered themselves up to them; but those who remained Perpenna took under his command and attempted to do something. After using the materials provided by Sertorius just enough to cut a sorry figure and make it clear that he was fitted by nature neither to command nor to obey, he attacked Pompey;

and having been quickly crushed by him and taken prisoner, he did not even endure this extreme misfortune as a leader should, but, being in possession of the papers of Sertorius, he promised to show Pompey autograph letters from men of consular rank and of the highest influence in Rome, in which they invited Sertorius to come to Italy, assuring him that there were many there who desired eagerly to stir up a revolution and change the constitution.

Pompey, then, did not act in this emergency like a young man, but like one whose understanding was right well matured and disciplined, and so freed Rome from revolutionary terrors. For he got together those letters and all the papers of Sertorius and burned them, without reading them himself or suffering anyone else to do so; and Perpenna himself he speedily put to death, through fear that seditions and disturbances might arise if the names of the correspondents of Sertorius were communicated to anybody.[*](Cf. the Pompey, xx. 4.)

Of Perpenna’s fellow conspirators, some were brought to Pompey and put to death, others fled to Africa and fell victims to the spears of the Maurusians. Not one escaped, except Aufidius, the rival of Manlius; he, either because men did not notice him or because they did not heed him, came to old age in a barbarian village, a poor and hated man.