Civil Wars

Salassus escaped, and, not knowing what to do with himself, came back to the city by night, thinking that the danger had mostly passed away. His house had been sold. The janitor, who had been sold with the house, was the only one who recognized him, and he received him in his room, promising to conceal him and feed him as well as he could. Salassus told the janitor to call his wife from her own house. She pretended to be very desirous to come, but to be fearful of the night and distrustful of her servants, and said that she would come at daybreak. When daylight came she went for the murderers. The janitor, because she was delaying, ran to her house to hasten her coming. When the janitor went out Salassus feared that he had gone to lay a plot against him, and went up to the roof to watch what would happen. Seeing that it was not the janitor but his wife who was bringing the murderers, he precipitated himself from the roof. Fulvius fled to the house of a female servant, who had been his mistress, and to whom he had given freedom and a dowry on her marriage. Although she had been so well treated by him she betrayed him on account of jealousy of the woman whom Fulvius had married after his relations with her. Let these serve as examples of depraved women.

Statius, the Samnite, who had had great influence with the Samnites during the social war and who had been raised to the rank of a Roman senator for his noble deeds, his wealth, and his lineage, and who was now eighty years of age, was proscribed on account of his riches. He threw open his house to the people and to his own slaves to carry away whatever they pleased. He also scattered his property around with his own hand. When at last the house was empty he closed the doors, set fire to it, and perished, and the fire spread to many other parts of the city. Capito, through his half-opened door, for a long time resisted those who had been sent against him, killing them one by one. Finally, he was overpowered by numbers and slain after killing single-handed many of his assailants. Vetulinus assembled around Rhegium a large force of the proscribed and those who had fled with them, and others from the eighteen cities which had been promised as rewards of victory to the soldiers and who were indignant at such treatment. With these men Vetulinus slew the centurions who were scouting thereabouts, until a larger force was sent against him, and even then he did not desist, but passed over to Sicily and joined Sextus Pompeius, who had mastered that island and who received the fugitives. There he fought bravely until he was defeated in several engagements. Then he sent his son and the remainder of the proscribed who were with him to Messana, and when he saw that their boat was passing the straits he dashed upon the enemy and was cut in pieces.[*](That the text is defective here is evident, for how could Vetulinus send his son across the straits to Messana if he were already in Sicily? Schweighäuser met the difficulty by substituting e)/p emyen for e)pe/rasen, i.e., he opened communications with Sextus Pompeius, instead of joining him in Sicily. Probably there is a lacuna in the text.)

Naso, having been betrayed by a freedman who had been his favorite, snatched a sword from one of the soldiers, and, having killed his betrayer with it, surrendered himself to the murderers. A slave who was devoted to his master left the latter on a hill while he went to the sea-shore to hire a boat. On his return he found that his master had been killed, and while he was breathing his last the slave called out to him, "Wait a moment, my master," whereupon he fell suddenly upon the centurion and slew him. Then he killed himself, saying to his master, "Now you have consolation." Lucius placed his gold in the hands of his two most faithful freedmen and started for the seashore. They ran away with it, and he turned around, despairing of his life, and gave himself up to the murderers. Labienus, who had captured and killed many persons in the time of the proscription of Sulla, thought that he would be disgraced if he did not bear himself bravely under similar circumstances. So he.went to his front door, seated himself in a chair, and waited for the murderers. Cestius concealed himself in the fields among faithful slaves. When he saw centurions running hither and thither with weapons and the heads of the proscribed he could not endure the prolonged fear. He persuaded the slaves to light a funeral pyre, so that they might say that they were paying the last rites to the dead Cestius. They were deceived by him and lighted the pyre accordingly, whereupon he leaped into it. Aponius concealed himself securely, but, as he could not endure the meanness of his diet, he came forth and delivered himself to slaughter. Another proscript voluntarily seated himself in full view, and, as the murderers delayed their coming, he strangled himself in public.

Lucius, the father-in-law of Asinius, who was then consul, fled by sea, but, as he could not endure the anguish of the tempest, he leaped overboard. Sisinius fled from his pursuers, exclaiming that he was not proscribed, but that they had conspired against him on account of his money. They brought him to the proscription list and told him to read his name on it, and while he was reading killed him. Æmilius, not knowing that he was proscribed and seeing another man pursued, asked the pursuing centurion who the proscribed man was. The centurion, recognizing Æmilius, replied, "You and he," and killed them both. Cilo and Decius were going out of the senate-house when they learned that their names were on the list of the proscribed, but no one had yet gone in pursuit of them. They fled incontinently through the city gates, and their running betrayed them to the centurions whom they met on the road. Icilius, who was one of the judges in the trial of Brutus and Cassius when Octavius presided over the tribunal with his army, and who, when all the other judges deposited secret ballots of condemnation, alone publicly deposited one of acquittal, now unmindful of his former magnanimity and independence put his shoulder under a dead body that was being conveyed to burial, and took a place among the carriers of the bier. The guards at the city gates noticed that the number of corpse-bearers was greater by one man than usual, but they did not suspect the bearers. They only searched the bier to make sure that it was not somebody counterfeiting a corpse, but, as the bearers fell into a dispute with Icilius as not being a member of their trade, he was recognized by the murderers and killed.[*](See iii. 95 supra, where mention is made of the trial of Brutus and Cassius in absentia, where one judge only voted for acquittal and was afterwards put on the list of the proscribed. Dion Cassius (xlvii. 49) refers to this man and gives him the name of Sicilius Coronas, which the French editors of that author (MM. Gros and Boissee) change to Icilius Coronas both on grounds of palæography and on the authority of Appian. Plutarch refers to one Publicus Silicius, who was observed to shed tears when the condemnation of Brutus was announced, and who was afterwards put on the list of the proscribed for that reason. (Life of Brutus, 27.))

Varus, who was betrayed by a freedman, ran away, and after wandering from mountain to mountain came to a marsh at Minturnæ, where he stopped to take rest. The inhabitants of Minturnæ were mounting guard over this marsh in search of robbers, and the agitation of the reeds revealed the hiding-place of Varus. He was captured and said that he was a robber. He was condemned to death and resigned himself to his fate, but as they were preparing to subject him to torture to compel him to reveal his accomplices, he could not bear such an indignity. "I forbid you, citizens of Minturnæ," he said, "either to torture or to kill one who has been a consul and -- what is more important in the eyes of our present rulers -- also proscribed! If it is not permitted me to escape, I prefer to suffer at the hands of my equals." The Minturnians did not believe him. They discredited his story until a centurion, who was scouting in that neighborhood, recognized him, and cut off his head, leaving the remainder of his body to the Minturnians. Largus was captured in the fields by soldiers who were pursuing another man. They took pity on him because he had been captured when they were not seeking him, and allowed him to escape in the forest. Being pursued by others, he ran back to his first captors, saying, "I would rather that you, who had compassion on me, should kill me, so that you may have the reward instead of those men." Thus he recompensed them with his death for their kindness to him.

Rufus possessed a handsome house near that of Fulvia, the wife of Antony, which she had wanted to buy, but he would not sell it, and although he now offered it to her as a free gift, he was proscribed. His head was brought to Antony, who said it did not concern him and sent it to his wife.[*](Valerius Maximus (ix. 5. 4) says that the head of Cæsetius Rufus, a senator, was brought to Antony while he was sitting at a banquet, and that all the others turned away their faces. "Antony ordered that it be brought nearer, and, after looking at it carefully for some time, and while all were waiting to hear what he would say, he remarked: 'I have never known this man.'") She ordered that it be fastened to the front of his own house instead of the rostra. Another man had a very handsome and well-shaded country-place in which was a beautiful and deep grotto, on account of which probably he was proscribed. He was taking the air in this grotto when the murderers were observed by a slave, as they were coming toward him, but still some distance off. The slave conveyed him to the innermost recess of the grotto, dressed himself in his master's short tunic, pretended that he was the man and simulated alarm, and would have been killed on the spot had not one of his fellow-slaves exposed the trick. In this way the master was killed, but the people were so indignant that they gave the triumvirs no rest until they had obtained from them the crucifixion of the slave who had betrayed his master, and the freedom of the one who had tried to save him. A slave revealed the hiding-place of Aterius and obtained his freedom in consequence. He had the impudence to bid against the sons at the sale of the dead man's property, and insulted them grossly. They followed him everywhere with silent tears till the people became exasperated, and the triumvirs made him again the slave of the sons of the proscript, for doing more than was needful. Such were the evils that befell the men.