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I might observe, that the streets were often encumbered with the putrefying carcasses of criminals, who had been dragged through them by the heels, and precipitated from the Scalae Gemoniae, or Tarpeian rock, before they were thrown into the Tyber, which was the general receptacle of the cloaca maxima and all the filth of Rome: besides, the bodies of all those who made away with themselves, without sufficient cause; of such as were condemned for sacrilege, or killed by thunder, were left unburned and unburied, to rot above ground.
At length, upon the Scalae Gemoniae, he was tormented and put to death in lingering tortures, and then dragged by a hook into the Tiber. XVIII. He perished with his brother and son , in the fifty-seventh year of his age , and verified the prediction of those who, from the omen which happened to him at Vienne, as before related , foretold that he would be made prisoner by some man of Gaul.
And Germanus too came there with the whole army not long afterwards, having made all preparations in the best way possible and also bringing along many wagons for the army. And overtaking his opponents in a place which the Romans call Scalae Veteres, he made his preparations for battle in the following manner.
'Illum jura potius ponere quam de jure respondere dixisses; eique appropinquabant clientes tanquam judici potius quam advocato. Mackenzie's Works, ed. 1716, vol. i. part 2, p. 7. 'Opposuit ei providentia Nisbetum: qui summâ doctrinâ consummatâque eloquentiâ causas agebat, ut justitiae scalae in aequilibrio essent; nimiâ tamen arte semper utens artem suam suspectam reddebat.
The Romans were undoubtedly a barbarous people, who delighted in horrible spectacles. They viewed with pleasure the dead bodies of criminals dragged through the streets, or thrown down the Scalae Gemoniae and Tarpeian rock, for their contemplation. Their rostra were generally adorned with the heads of some remarkable citizens, like Temple-Bar, at London.
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