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We all know Maternus was scourged, for that was done in Antioch; but they did not scourge him very badly, for fear he might die on the way to the place of execution. There is no doubt he was crucified, but he was only tied, not nailed.
Agathemer was made secure in a like fashion. When he lay down to sleep, after he had composed himself to rest, a blanket was spread over him and a burly ruffian lay down on either side of him, the edges of the blanket under them. I slept similarly guarded. On day marches Caburus kept Agathemer close to him; I was never out of sight of Maternus.
Very well: A good man, that went out and met the caravan bought low sold high, and the price is falling. But as I was saying, your story is simply a string of coincidences. All the robbers use Maternus' war-cry, because of the terror his name inspires; they probably had not heard he had been crucified."
When Maternus proposed to hire twenty-one of these suits the proprietor took it as a customary transaction, inspected and counted twenty-one costumes and stated the charge for hiring them until the day after the Festival.
Flaccus reported that the Ethiopians of Agesymba, were three months journeying to the south of the Garamantes, and the latter were 5400 of the stadia of Marinus, distant from Cyrene. According to the journal of Maternus, when the king of the Garamantes set off to attack the people of Agesymba, he marched four months to the south.
I assumed my most indifferent air and carefully avoided looking across the street, except for one cautious glance from the lowest step of the Temple. Then I glimpsed, leaning against a pier of the outer arcade of the Circus Maximus, two men wrapped in dingy cloaks, for the morning had been cool. After we were in the Temple of Hercules, Maternus asked: "Did you recognize them?"
Now, because of the negligence of his son, outlaws had so prospered that they had a sort of organization among themselves, like a commonwealth inside the Republic, as I had seen during my captivity with Maternus and now glimpsed again in Bulla's revelations.
Now listen to this: between the time when they learned of Maternus' execution and their passing the place of execution that is to say at the narrowest part of the pass, where it curves and begins to descend on this side of the mountain they were attacked by robbers who made use of Maternus' war-cry.
He felt a sort of superstitious reverence for the victim, increased by the strange coincidence that he had made use, without previous reflection, of Maternus' name.
Both between Pistoria and Arretium, along the byroads, and from the Pallia to Rome, on the Clodian Highway, I was in the party headed by Maternus himself, a party of five besides us two. When we dispersed near Luca I had noted that Torix, Pelops and Cossedo with two more made a party; and that Caburus took Agathemer with him.
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