Roman life in the days of CiceroChurch, Alfred John
History
Roman life in the days of Cicero
Church, Alfred John
Rome -- Social life and customs
who were put out of the way for the sake of their property. The
murderers might well have said: 'His fine mansion has been the death of
this man; or his gardens, or his baths.' Quintus Aurelius, a peaceable
citizen, who had had only this share in the late civil troubles, that he
had felt for the misfortunes of others, coming into the forum, read the
list of the proscribed and found in it his own name. 'Unfortunate that I
am,' he said, 'it is my farm at Alba that has been my ruin;' and he had
not gone many steps before he was cut down by a man that was following
him. Lucius Catiline's conduct was especially wicked. He had murdered
his own brother. This was before the proscription began. He went to
Sulla and begged that the name might be put in the list as if the man
were still alive; and it was so put. His gratitude to Sulla was shown by
his killing one Marius, who belonged to the opposite faction, and
bringing his head to Sulla as he sat in the forum. (This Marius was a
kinsman of the great democratic leader, and was one of the most popular
men in Rome.) This done, he washed his hands in the holy water-basin of
the temple of Apollo."
Forty senators and sixteen hundred knights, and more than as many men of
obscure station, are said to have perished. At last, on the first of
June, 81, the list was closed. Still the reign of terror was not yet at
an end, as the strange story which I shall now relate will amply prove.
To look into the details of a particular case makes us better able to
imagine what it really was to live at Rome in the days of the Dictator
than to read many pages of general description. The story is all the
more impressive because the events happened after order had been
restored and things were supposed to be proceeding in their regular
course.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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