Legatio Ad Gaium

Then standing in the middle of our victims, having bathed ourselves deeply in the blood of our kinsfolk (for such blood will be the only bath which we shall have wherewith to cleanse ourselves for the journey to the shades below), we will mingle our own blood with it, slaughtering ourselves upon their bodies.

And when we are dead, let this commandment be inscribed over us as an epitaph, 'Let not even God blame us, who have had a due regard to both

We have heard of a most ancient tradition, which has been handed down throughout Greece by their historians, who have affirmed that the head of the Gorgon had such mighty power, that those who beheld it immediately became stones and rocks. But this appears only to be a fiction and fable, the truth being that great, and unexpected, and wonderful events do often bring after them great disaster; for instance, the anger of a master causes death, or calamities equivalent to death.

"Do you suppose (may God forbid that any such event should ever take place) that if any of our countrymen were to see this statue being brought into our temple, it would not change them into stones? Their limbs being all congealed, and their eyes becoming fixed so as not to be capable of motion, and their whole body losing all its natural motions in every one of its united parts and limbs!

We will, however, now, O Petronius, address to you one last and most righteous and just request; we say that you ought not to do what you are commanded, but we entreat you to grant us a respite, and we most earnestly supplicate you to delay a little while till we appoint an embassy, and send it to approach your master, and to convey our entreaties to him.

Perhaps in our embassy we may find some argument or other to persuade him, either by bringing before him all the considerations respecting the honour of God, or the preservation of our indestructible and unalterable laws, or by urging upon him that we ought not to be subjected to a worse fate than all the nations even in the very most remote extremities of the earth, who have been allowed to preserve their national customs; with reference to which his grandfather and great-grandfather came to a righteous decision when they confirmed and set the seal to our customs with all care.

Perhaps when he hears these arguments he will be more merciful to us. The intentions of the great do not always continue the same, and those which are adopted in anger are the quickest to change. We have been grievously calumniated. Suffer us to refute the false accusations which

"And if we fail to convince him, what will after that prevent him from doing the things which he at present intends to do? Until, then, we have sent this embassy, do not cut off all the hopes of so many myriads of men, since our zeal and earnestness is displayed not in the cause of gain, but in that of religion; though indeed we speak foolishly in using such an expression as that, for what can be a more real and beneficial gain to men than holiness?"

They uttered these complaints and entreaties with great agony and misery of soul, with exceeding sobbing and difficulty of speech, for all their limbs sweated with apprehension, and their ceaseless tears flowed in torrents, so that all who heard them, and Petronius himself, sympathised with their sorrow, for he was by nature a man very kind and gentle in his natural disposition, so that he was easily influenced by what was now said or heard; and what was said appeared to be entirely just, and the misery of those whom he now beheld appeared most pitiable;