The attacks on Scipio were not confined to the informal language of private intercourse. Hostile magistrates introduced his enemies to the Rostra, and men like Fulvius Flaccus inveighed bitterly against him.[458] On the day when one of these attacks was made, Scipio was defending his position before the people; he had been stung by the charge of ingratitude, for he retorted it on his accusers; he complained that an ill return was being made to him for his many services to the State. In the evening Scipio was escorted from the senate to his house by a crowd of sympathisers. Besides senators and other Romans the escort comprised representatives of his new clients, the Latins and the Italian allies.[459] His mind was full of the speech which he meant to deliver to the people on the following day. He retired early to his sleeping chamber and placed his writing tablet beside his bed, that he might fix the sudden inspirations of his waking hours. When morning dawned, he was found lying on his couch but with every trace of life extinct. The family inquisition on the slaves of the household was held as a matter of course. Their statements were never published to the world, but it was believed that under torture they had confessed to seeing certain men introduced stealthily during the night through the back part of the house; these, they thought, had strangled their master.[460] The reason which they assigned for their reticence was their fear of the people; they knew that Scipio's death had not appeased the popular fury, that the news had been received with joy, and they did not wish by invidious revelations to become the victims of the people's hate. The fears of the slaves were subsequently reflected in the minds of those who would have been willing to push the investigation further. There was ground for suspicion; for Scipio, although some believed him delicate,[461] had shown no sign of recent illness. A scrutiny of the body is even said to have revealed a livid impress near the throat.[462] The investigation which followed a sudden death within the walls of a Roman household, if it revealed the suspicion of foul play, was usually the preliminary to a public inquiry. The duty of revenge was sacred; it appealed to the family even more than to the public conscience. But there was no one to raise the cry for retribution. He had no sons, and his family was represented but by his loveless wife Sempronia. His many friends must indeed have talked of making the matter public, and perhaps began at once to give vent to those dark suspicions which down to a late age clouded the names of so many of the dead man's contemporaries. But the project is said to have been immediately opposed by representatives of the popular party;[463] the crime, if crime there was, had been no vulgar murder; a suspicion that violence had been used was an insult to the men who had fought him fairly in the political field; a _quaestio_