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The Roman soldiers, perplexed with sudden alarm, and not knowing what was best for them to do, were in trepidation. At the citadel,1 where their standards and shields were, was posted a guard of the enemy; and the city-gates, previously closed, prevented escape. Women and children, too, on the roofs of the houses,2 hurled down upon them, with great eagerness, stones and whatever else their position furnished. Thus neither could such twofold danger be guarded against, nor could the bravest resist the feeblest; the worthy and the worthless, the valiant and the cowardly, were alike put to death unavenged. In the midst of this slaughter, while the Numidians were exercising every cruelty, and the town was closed on all sides, Turpilius was the only one, of all the Italians, that escaped unhurt. Whether his flight was the consequence of compassion in his entertainer, of compact, or of chance, I have never discovered; but since, in such a general massacre, he preferred inglorious safety to an honorable name, he seems to have been a worthless and infamous character.3
1 LXVII. Were in trepidation. At the citadel, etc.] I have translated this passage in conformity with the texts of Gerlach, Kritzius, Dietsch, Müller, and Allen, who put a point between trepidare and ad arcem. Cortius, Havercamp, and Bernouf have trepidare ad arcem, without any point. Which method gives the better sense, any reader can judge.
2 On the roofs of the houses] “Pro tectis œdificiorum.” In front of the roofs of the houses; that is, at the parapets. “"In primâ tectorum parte."” Kritzius. The roofs were flat.
3 Worthless and infamous character] “Improbus intestabilisque.” These words are taken from the twelve tables of the Roman law: See Aul. Gell. vi. 7; xv. 3. Horace, in allusion to them, has intestabilis et sacer, Sat. ii. 3. 181. Intestabilis signified a person to be of so infamous a character that he was not allowed to give evidence in a court of justice.
Sallust. The Jugurthine War. Rev. John Selby Watson, M.A. New York and London. Harper & Brothers. 1899.
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