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Hitherto the weak Roman army had with difficulty maintained itself in Thurii against the Lucanians and Bruttians; but now the consul Gaius Fabricius Luscinus appeared with a strong army in front of the town, relieved it, defeated the Lucanians in a great engagement, and took their general Statilius prisoner.
Guillemont cites the instance of a woman who was killed by a stroke of lightning, but whose fetus was saved; while Fabricius Hildanus describes a case in which there was perforation of the head, fracture of the skull, and a wound of the groin, due to sudden starting and agony of terror of the mother. Here there was not the slightest history of any external violence.
The patrician Appius Claudius and the farmer Manius Curius vehement in their personal antagonism jointly by wise counsel and vigorous action conquered king Pyrrhus; and while Gaius Fabricius as censor inflicted penalties on Publius Cornelius Rufinus for his aristocratic sentiments and aristocratic habits, this did not prevent him from supporting the claim of Rufinus to a second consulate on account of his recognized ability as a general.
And they were sent back after the Saturnalia, for the senate decreed that any of them who remained behind should be put to death. After this, when C. Fabricius was consul, a man came into his camp bringing a letter from King Pyrrhus' physician, in which he offered to poison the King if he could be assured of a suitable reward for his services in thus bringing the war to an end without a blow.
He had received from Fabricius, and from all the great authorities of the day, the current view of the circulation of the blood. But he was a man with that rarest of all qualities intellectual honesty; and by dint of cultivating that great faculty, which is more moral than intellectual, it had become impossible for him to say he believed anything which he did not clearly believe.
This man conceived the design of offering to the Romans to poison his master on condition of receiving a suitable reward. He accordingly wrote a letter to Fabricius making the proposal.
The room has an artistic ceiling by Holsteyn, and on the walls are some paintings rich in detail, and of much historic interest. One of Flinck's largest works "Marcus Curius Dentatus" is at one end: at the other, one of Ferdinand Bol's "Fabricius in the Camp of Pyrrhus." Facing the windows is one by Wappers and Eeckhout: one that irresistibly appeals to the hearts of all Hollanders.
Fabricius favors the idea we have given above, and says, "A celebrated Persian astronomer, one Schatrenschar, invented the game of Chess, and gave it his own name, which it still bears in that country." Nicod derives it from Xeque, a Moorish word for Prince or Lord. Bochart maintains that Schach-mat is originally Persian, and means "the king is dead."
And Pyrrhus received his answer without any resentment or tyrannic passion; nay, among his friends he highly commended the great mind of Fabricius, and intrusted the prisoners to him alone, on condition that if the senate should not vote a peace, after they had conversed with their friends and celebrated the festival of Saturn, they should be remanded.
At this point the conspirators appear to have lost their heads. As Martinic had not been killed by his fall, it was absurd to treat Slawata in the same way; and yet they now flung him out of the window, and his secretary Fabricius after him.
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