United States or Turkmenistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Alas! alas! ah me!" cried the half-sobbing freedman, "my friend, my more than friend, my countryman, my kinsman, Medon!" "Ha! dost thou recognize the features? didst thou know him who lies so coldly and inanimately here before us?" cried the excited youth, "whose slave was he? speak, Thrasea, on thy life! this shall be looked to straightway; and, by the Gods! avenged."
"Carry this signet, my good Geta," said the young man, drawing off the large seal-ring which adorned his right hand, and giving it to him, "to Thrasea, my trusty freedman, and let him see that they put the housings and gallic wolf-bit on the black horse Aufidus, and bring him thou, with one of my slaves, down the slope of Scaurus, and past the Great Circus, to the Carmental Gate, where thou wilt find us.
The unrelenting warfare which the ghost of the legitimate republic waged for centuries, from Cassius and Brutus down to Thrasea and Tacitus, nay, even far later, against the Caesarian monarchy a warfare of plots and of literature was the legacy which the dying Cato bequeathed to his enemies.
His character seems to have been naturally proud and independent, but unequal to heroism in action. Like almost all literary minds he shrunk from facing peril or discomfort, and tried to steer a course between the harsh self-assertion of a Thrasea and the cringing servility of the majority of senators.
The only charge objected against Paetus Thrasea was, that he had a melancholy cast of features, and looked like a schoolmaster. He allowed but one hour to those whom he obliged to kill themselves; and, to prevent delay, he sent them physicians "to cure them immediately, if they lingered beyond that time;" for so he called bleeding them to death.
XXXVII. Munatius, however, states that his anger against Cato arose not by reason of Cato's distrust of him, but his contemptuous behaviour, and a certain jealousy of his own in regard to Canidius; for Munatius also published a book about Cato, which Thrasea chiefly followed.
While the former coldly relates the facts; and the latter sets before our eyes the venerable figures of a Soranus and a Thrasea, intrepid in their fate, and only moved by the melting sorrows of their friends and kindred. What sympathy then touches every human heart! What indignation against the tyrant, whose causeless fear or unprovoked malice gave rise to such detestable barbarity!
But with the freedman Thrasea it was a very different matter, for he shook so much with absolute terror, that he had well nigh dropped the torch; while, drawing nearer to his master’s side, with teeth that chattered as if in an ague fit, and a face deserted by every particle of color, he besought him in faltering accents, "by all the Gods! to turn back instantly, lest evil might come of it!"
"Not carefully," he answered, "but I have noticed that there is a little gorge just beyond the grotto, broken with crags and blocks of tufo, and overgrown with much brushwood, and many junipers and ivy." "That will do then, I warrant me," replied Arvina. "Now mark what I tell you, Thrasea; for it may be, that my life shall depend on your acting as I direct.
He remembered that that crowd of people had loved also Britannicus, poisoned by Nero; and Agrippina, killed at his command; and Octavia, smothered in hot steam at the Pandataria, after her veins had been opened previously; and Rubelius Plautus, who had been banished; and Thrasea, to whom any morning might bring a death sentence.
Word Of The Day