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Formiae was a very convenient spot; it lay on the via Appia, and was thus in direct communication both with Rome and the bay of Naples, either by land or sea.

Complete Submission of the Volscian and Campanian Provinces In like manner the dominion of Rome was established and confirmed in the south Volscian and Campanian territories. Fundi, Formiae, Capua, Cumae, and a number of smaller towns became dependent Roman communities with self-administration.

Notwithstanding these successes, peace was not yet established, either among the Samnites or Etrurians: for the latter, at the instigation of the Perusians, resumed their arms, after his army had been withdrawn by the consul; and the Samnites made predatory incursions on the territories of Vescia and Formiae; and also on the other side, on those of Aesernia, and the parts adjacent to the river Vulturnus.

He was known to be an overbearing and cruel master, and one who forgot or rather remembered to keenly that his own father had been a slave. He was bathing at his villa near Formiae, when he was suddenly surrounded by his slaves. One seized him by the throat, another struck him on the forehead, and others smote him in the chest, belly, and even I am shocked to say in the private parts.

When men discovered the isles of Aeolus in the Lipari islands, when they pointed out at the Lacinian cape the isle of Calypso, at the cape of Misenum that of the Sirens, at the cape of Circeii that of Circe, when they recognized in the steep promontory of Terracina the towering burial-mound of Elpenor, when the Laestrygones were provided with haunts near Caieta and Formiae, when the two sons of Ulysses and Circe, Agrius, that is the "wild," and Latinus, were made to rule over the Tyrrhenians in the "inmost recess of the holy islands," or, according to a more recent version, Latinus was called the son of Ulysses and Circe, and Auson the son of Ulysses and Calypso we recognize in these legends ancient sailors' tales of the seafarers of Ionia, who thought of their native home as they traversed the Tyrrhene Sea.

On the 7th of December, after some aimless wandering that hardly was a serious effort to escape, Cicero was overtaken near Formiae by a small party of Antonian troops. He was killed, and his head sent to Rome and displayed in the senate-house. There was nothing left for which he could have wished to live. In the five centuries of the Republic there never had been a darker time for Rome.

It was said that a boy was born at Arretium who had but one hand; that, at Amiternum, a shower of earth fell; a gate and wall at Formiae were struck by lightning; and, what was more alarming than all, an ox, belonging to the consul, Cneius Domitius, spoke these words, "Rome, take care of thyself."

His property was at once confiscated; his villas at Tusculum and at Formiae were plundered and laid waste, the consuls claiming the lion's share of the spoil; and Clodius, with his armed mob, set fire to the noble house on the Palatine, razed it to the ground, and erected on the site a temple to Liberty!

His villa at Formiae, his favourite residence next to Tusculum, was, he protested, more like a public hall.

Meantime Cicero had put to sea. But even in this extremity he could not make up his mind to leave Italy, and put to land at Circeii. After further hesitation he again embarked, and again sought the Italian shore near Formiae. For the night he stayed at his villa near that place, and next morning would not move, exclaiming: "Let me die in my own country that country which I have so often saved."