The slave revolt led by Spartacus in 73 B.C. is now half forgotten in history, but that rebel gladiator had later several almost as successful imitators. Every now and then something happens which makes senatorial blood run cold. Only in Trajan’s day there was one Lagius Macedo, an ex-prætor, a cruel and overbearing master, indeed, who was beaten to death by his slaves while he was bathing at his Formiæ villa. The wretches were all crucified, of course, but (as wrote Pliny the Younger just after it happened): “You see what we masters are exposed to; and nobody can feel safe because he’s an easy and mild master; for it’s sheer villainy, not premeditation, that prompts our murder.” Another danger, especially under evil emperors, comes from the incessant presence of slaves at the most private affairs of their lords, their willingness to tattle, to assist informers, and often to help ruin their masters outright in return for freedom and reward. “The tongue is the worst part of a bad slave,” runs a familiar saying, and even an honest and high-minded man must shudder at the idea of having all his intimate doings passed on to delight his enemies. =113. Punishment of Slaves.=--Under these circumstances, and with so many slaves who are undoubtedly by origin and nature unreliable if not incorrigible, every large house has its small private dungeon, and also a low-browed wolfish creature who serves as jailer and official “whipper.” Even in Calvus’s house he finds occupation, for in so large a familia some luckless boy or maid is often caught loitering or pilfering, and gets a dose of the many-lashed scourge--at the orders of the upper-slave managers.[61] Under-slaves, indeed, think nothing of a lashing beyond its mere pain; there is no disgrace, it is all part of one’s lot in life. There can be much worse things than this in many houses. Servilia, one of Gratia’s acquaintances, often beats her tire-women cruelly with the flat of her bronze mirror for the most trivial offenses. Ambustus, the new ædile, lately ordered a boy to get one hundred stripes merely for being slow in bringing hot water. The rich widow Lepidia so enjoys having her slaves flogged, that she makes the whipper actually do his pitiless work in her dressing room, while she is reading the “Daily Journal” (_Acta Diurna_, see p. 282) and having her face rouged. Many a slave has been whipped to death because of some small folly which sent his master or mistress into a rage, and noblemen have been known to keep huge flesh-eating carp in their fish ponds, and to toss in a recalcitrant slave occasionally to improve the flavor of the fish, although such actions disgust all decent people.