[136]
When he had said this, and the multitude had openly applauded him
for what he had said, he took some of the armed men, and made haste away
to the house in which I lodged, as if he would kill me immediately, while
I was wholly insensible of all till this disturbance happened; and by reason
of the pains I had been taking, was fallen fast asleep. But Simon, who
was intrusted with the care of my body, and was the only person that stayed
with me, and saw the violent incursion the citizens made upon me, awaked
me, and told me of the danger I was in, and desired me to let him kill
me, that I might die bravely and like a general, before my enemies came
in, and forced me [to kill myself], or killed me themselves. Thus did he
discourse to me; but I committed the care of my life to God, and made haste
to go out to the multitude. Accordingly, I put on a black garment, and
hung my sword at my neck, and went by such a different way to the hippodrome,
wherein I thought none of my adversaries would meet me; so I appeared among
them on the sudden, and fell down flat on the earth, and bedewed the ground
with my tears: then I seemed to them all an object of compassion. And when
I perceived the change that was made in the multitude, I tried to divide
their opinions before the armed men should return from my house; so I granted
them that I had been as wicked as they supposed me to be; but still I entreated
them to let me first inform them for what use I had kept that money which
arose from the plunder, and, that they might then kill me if they pleased:
and upon the multitude's ordering me to speak, the armed men came upon
me, and when they saw me, they ran to kill me; but when the multitude bade
them hold their hands, they complied, and expected that as soon as I should
own to them that I kept the money for the king, it would be looked on as
a confession of my treason, and they should then be allowed to kill me.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.