because being without arms they were compassed on every side with armed
men.
Then said the King, "Mettus, if indeed thou couldst learn faith and the
keeping of treaties, I had suffered thee to live that thou mightest have
such teaching from me. But now, seeing that thy disease is past healing,
thou shalt teach other men to hold in reverence the holy things which
thou hast despised. For even as thou wast divided in heart between Rome
and Fidenae, so shall thy body be divided." Then at the King's bidding,
they brought two chariots, with four horses harnessed to each of them;
and binding the body of Mettus to the chariots, they drave the horses
divers ways so that the man was torn asunder.
In the meanwhile there had been sent horsemen to Alba who should bring
the people to Rome; and now the army also was led thither that they
might destroy the city utterly. Great sorrow was there in Alba that day,
men knowing not for fear and grief what they should carry with them or
leave behind. For a while, indeed, they wandered through their houses,
knowing that they should not see them any more. But when the horsemen
shouted to them that they should depart, and the crash of houses which
men were now destroying began to be heard, and the dust rising up from
the outskirts of the city covered all things as with a cloud, then they
snatched up in haste each such things as they could, and so departed the
home in which they had been born and bred. Very lamentable was their cry
as they went, more especially of the women, when they saw armed men
in the temples wherein they had been wont to worship, the very gods
themselves being left, as it seemed, in captivity. And when the people
were now gone forth from their city the Romans left not one stone upon
another of all that was in the city; so that that which had been four
hundred years in building (for so long had Alba endured) perished in
one hour. Nevertheless they harmed not the temples, for so the King had
commanded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account