United States or Pakistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
His young wife, named Eponia, was in frantic despair at the news; but one of the freedmen informed her of the place of his retreat, and advised her to assume the habit and exhibit the desolation of widowhood, so as to confirm the report they had disseminated. "Well did she play her part," says Plutarch, "in this tragedy of woe."
Eponia asked that she might die with her husband, saying: "Caesar, do me this grace, for I have lived more happily underground and in darkness than thou hast done in the splendour of thy palace."
But friends who were in her confidence dissuaded her from prosecuting the journey. The imperial clemency was not a quality to be calculated upon with confidence. They accordingly returned to their subterranean abode. There they lived for nine years, during which, "as a lioness in her den," says Plutarch, "Eponia gave birth to two young whelps, and suckled them at her own breast."
At length they were discovered, and Sabinus and his wife were brought before Vespasian. "Caesar," said Eponia, showing him her children, "I conceived and suckled them in a tomb, that there might be more of us to entreat thy mercy." But the Emperor was not disposed to be clement to one who pretended to inherit the sacred Julian blood, and he ordered Sabinus to be led to the block.
Word Of The Day