In Flaccum

And when they heard of the arrest that had taken place, and that Flaccus was now within the toils, stretching up their hands to heaven, they sang a hymn, and began a song of praise to God, who presides over all the affairs of men, saying, "We are not delighted, O Master, at the punishment of our enemy, being taught by the sacred laws to submit to all the vicissitudes of human life, but we justly give thanks to thee, who hast had mercy and compassion upon us, and who hast thus relieved our continual and incessant oppressions."

And when they had spent the whole night in hymns and songs, they poured out through the gates at the earliest dawn, and hastened to the nearest point of the shore, for they had been deprived of their usual places for prayer, and standing in a clear and open space, they cried out,

"O most mighty King of all mortal and immortal beings, we have come to offer thanks unto thee, to invoke earth and sea, and the air and the heaven, and all the parts of the universe, and the whole world in which alone we dwell, being driven out by men and robbed of everything else in the world, and being deprived of our city, and of all the buildings both private and public within the city, and being made houseless and homeless by the treachery of our governor, the only men in the world who are so treated.

You suggest to us favourable hopes of the setting straight of what is left to us, beginning to consent to our prayers, inasmuch as you have on a sudden thrown down the common enemy of our nation, the author and cause of all our calamities, exulting in pride, and trusting that he would gain credit by such means, before he was removed to a distance from us, in order that those who were evilly afflicted might not feel their joy impaired by learning it only by report, but you have chastised him while he was so near, almost as we may say before the eyes of those whom he oppressed, in order to give us a more distinct perception of the end which has fallen upon him in a short time beyond our hopes."

And besides what I have spoken of there is also a third thing, which appears to me to have taken place by the interposition of divine providence; for after he had set sail at

who a little while before were in the position of subjects to him, calling him their master, and benefactor, and saviour, and names of that sort, but who now were his adversaries, and that too displaying a power not only equal to but far superior to his own, not merely from the confidence which men feel in the justice of their cause, but, what was a matter of great moment, because they saw that the Judge of all human affairs was his irreconcileable enemy, being about now to take upon himself the form of a judge from a prudent determination not to appear to condemn any one beforehand unheard, and not to act the part of an enemy, who before hearing either accusation or defence, has already condemned the defendant in his mind, and has sentenced him to the most severe punishments.

But nothing is so terrible as for men who have been the more powerful to be accused by their inferiors, and for those who have been rulers to be impeached by their former subjects, which is as if masters were being prosecuted by their natural or purchased slaves.

And yet even this in my opinion was a lighter evil when compared with another which was greater still; for it was not people who were merely in the simple rank of subjects who now, discarding that position and conspiring together, on a sudden attacked him with their accusations; but those who did so were men who during the chief part of the time that he had had the government of the country had been in a position of the greatest enmity and hatred to him, Lampo having been under a prosecution for impiety against Tiberius Caesar, and having been almost worn out by the matter which had been thus impending over his head for two years;

for the judge who had a grudge against him caused all sorts of delays and every possible protraction of the cause on various pretexts, wishing even if he escaped from the accusation, at all events to keep the terror of the future as uncertain hanging over his head for the longest possible period, so as to make his life more

And then again when he seemed to have come off victorious, saying that he was insulted and injured in his property (for he was compelled to become a gymnasiarch), either by being economical and illiberal in his expenses, pretending that he had not sufficient wealth for such unlimited expenditure, or perhaps really not having enough; but before he came to the trial, making a parade of being very rich, but when he did come to the proof then appearing not to be a man of exceeding wealth, having acquired nearly all the riches which he had by unjust actions.

For standing by the rulers when they gave judgment, he took notes of all that took place on the trial as if he were a clerk; and then he designedly passed over or omitted such and such points, and interpolated other things which were not said. And at times, too, he made alterations, changing and altering, and perverting matters, and turning things up-side down, aiming to get money by every syllable, or, I might rather say, by every letter, like a hunter after musty records,

whom the whole people with one accord did often with great felicity and propriety of expression call a pen-murderer, as slaying numbers of persons by the things which he wrote, and rendering the living more miserable than even the dead, as, though they might have got the victory and been in comfort, they were subjected to miserable defeat and poverty, their enemies having bought victory, and triumph, and wealth, of a man who sold and made his market of the properties of others.

For it was impossible for rulers who had the charge of so vast a country entrusted to them, when affairs of every sort, both private and public, were coming in upon them fresh every day, to remember everything which they had heard, especially as they had not only to fill the part of judges, but also to take accounts of all the revenues and taxes, the investigation into which occupied the greater portion of the year.

And the man to whom it was entrusted to take charge of that most important of all deposits, namely, justice, and of those most holy sentiments which had been delivered and urged before them, caused forgetfulness to the judges, registering those who ought to have had sentence in their favour as defeated, and those who ought to have been defeated as victorious, after the receipt of his accursed pay, or, to speak more properly, wages of iniquity.

Such, then, was the character of Lampo, who was now one of the accusers of Flaccus. And Isidorus was in no respect inferior to him in wickedness, being a man of the populace, a low demagogue, one who had continually studied to throw everything into disorder and confusion, an enemy to all peace and stability, very clever at exciting seditions and tumults which had no existence before, and at inflaming and exaggerating such as were already excited, taking care always to keep about him a disorderly and promiscuous mob of all the refuse of the people, ready for every kind of atrocity, which he had divided into regular sections as so many companies of soldiers.

There are a vast number of parties in the city whose association is founded in no one good principle, but who are united by wine, and drunkenness, and revelry, and the offspring of those indulgencies, insolence; and their meetings are called synods and couches by the natives.

In all these parties or the greater number of them Isidorus is said to have borne the bell, the leader of the feast, the chief of the supper, the disturber of the city. Then, whenever it was determined to do some mischief, at one signal they all went forth in a body, and did and said whatever they were told.

And on one occasion, being indignant with Flaccus because, after he had appeared originally to be a person of some weight with him, he afterwards was no longer courted in an equal degree, having hired a gang of fellows from the training schools and men accustomed to vociferate loudly, who sell their outcries as if in regular market to those who are inclined to buy them, he ordered them all to assemble at the gymnasium;

and they, having filled it, began to heap accusations on Flaccus without any particular grounds, inventing all kinds of monstrous accusations and all sorts of falsehoods in ridiculous language, stringing long sentences together, so that not only was Flaccus himself alarmed but all the others who were there at this unexpected attack, and especially, as it may be conjectured, from the idea that there must certainly have been some one behind the scenes whom they were studying to gratify, since they themselves had suffered no evil, and since they were well aware that the rest of the city had not been ill-treated by him.

Then, after they had deliberated awhile, they determined to