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Of these Herennius Bassus and Herius Petrius, having been invited by Hanno, who had come up to the wall, to a conference, and gone out with the permission of Marcellus, were thus addressed by him, through an interpreter.
For, to know whether there be anything written upon this or no, I have made use of a good part of that which Master Francisco di Nianto, the Tuscan, sets down, who hath written the manner of reading letters that do not appear; that which Zoroastes published, Peri grammaton acriton; and Calphurnius Bassus, De literis illegibilibus.
We are, however, dealing with two persons entirely beyond exception, namely Quintus Silius Bassus and Marcia Sabina. A match has been made between these parties, perhaps several years before the actual marriage can take place, and while the intended bride is a mere child of ten: even the future groom may be but a boy.
Another poet, in this period, was FABRICIUS VEIENTO, who wrote a severe satire against the priests of his time; as also one against the senators, for corruption in their judicial capacity. Nothing remains of either of those productions; but, for the latter, the author was banished by Nero. There now likewise flourished a lyric poet, CAESIUS BASSUS, to whom Persius has addressed his sixth satire.
When the brief applause was at an end, one of the elder bystanders addressed the principal workman, at the forge, in a low voice. "You are incautious, Caius Crispus, to sing such songs as this, and at such a time, too." "Tush, Bassus," answered the other, "it is you who are too timid. What harm is there, I should like to know, in singing an old Greek song done into Latin words?
But he did reveal the names of three senators whom, from what he had himself discovered, he deemed to be especially deserving of hatred. These were Manilius and Julius, and moreover Sulpicius Arrhenianus, who had blackmailed, among others, Bassus, the son of Pomponius, whose lieutenant he had been when Bassus was governor of Moesia.
The soldiers wintering in Apamea withdrew before he reached them toward Cilicia, and were pursued but were not won over. Bassus returned to Syria, where he was named commander, and he conquered Apamea so as to have it as a base for warfare. He enlisted not only the free but the slave fighting population, gathered money, and accumulated arms.
But all that man can give has fallen to my lot and to many another; the other thing, which can only be bestowed by the gods, is as difficult to attain to as it is presumptuous to hope for it. Farewell. For some days past Julius Bassus has been on his defence. He is a much harassed man whose misfortunes have made him famous.
'Thrice already have I told him the truth of the matter, and still he persists; well knowing that, if now he can scarcely sustain himself from falling over into the area below, he certainly could not, three hours ago, have been able to tell what play he made, or whether he made any play at all. Nay, Bassus, it was only of the male slaves that I spoke.
Nor at that of the Italian buried on the Via Flaminia at Rome, who in his epitaph complains that the bite of a she-puss on his little finger was the cause of his death. Nor of that of Q. Lecanius Bassus, who died suddenly of so small a prick with a needle on his left thumb that it could hardly be discerned.