Provoked by this contumacy, the pontiff proceeded with such unsparing severity against those who had been elevated to places of honour and profit, by the favour of his predecessor, that more than two hundred persons employed by Martin V. in various offices, were, upon being convicted of various offences, put to death by the hand of the executioner. The sagacity of Poggio, who was a witness of these cruel transactions, clearly foresaw the evil consequences which were likely to result from them.[169] The distractions of civil tumult soon demonstrated the justice of his apprehensions. The Colonnas, flying from Rome, solicited the assistance of their powerful relatives and friends, who resided in various parts of Italy. Having collected a sufficient body of troops, they marched to Rome; and being admitted into the city through the Appian gate by some of their partizans, they directed their course to the Piazza Colonna, where they were met by the soldiers of the pope. After a fierce encounter, the assailants were compelled to retire. Being thus frustrated in their attempt to make themselves masters of the city by open force, they endeavoured to accomplish their purpose by treachery. The vigilance of Eugenius however rendered their designs abortive. Having received intelligence that the archbishop of Benevento, the son of Antonio Colonna, and Masio his brother, were meditating some desperate enterprise, he caused them to be apprehended. Masio being put to the torture, confessed that they had laid a plan to seize the castle of St. Angelo, and to banish the pope and the Orsini from Rome. This treasonable project the unfortunate youth expiated by his death. He was beheaded in the Campo di Fiore, and his quarters were suspended to public view in four of the most frequented streets of the city. Soon after this event, the heart of Eugenius being mollified by a dangerous sickness, he became weary of the violence and hazard of civil strife; and by the medium of Angelotto Fosco, a citizen of Rome, he intimated to the Colonnas, that he was disposed to agree to a pacification. The terms of this pacification being settled, and solemnly proclaimed on the twenty-second of September, [A. D. 1471.] Rome once more enjoyed the blessing of domestic tranquillity.[170]