Suetonius, however, with wonderful
resolution,
MASSACRES OF ROMANS IN BRITAIN |
marched amidst a hostile population to
Londinium, which, though undistinguished by the name
of a colony, was much frequented by a number of merchants and trading
vessels. Uncertain whether he should choose it as a seat of war, as he
looked round on his scanty force of soldiers, and remembered with what a
serious warning the rashness of Petilius had been punished, he resolved to
save the province at the cost of a single town. Nor did the tears and
weeping of the people, as they implored his aid, deter him from giving the
signal of departure and receiving into his army all who would go with him.
Those who were chained to the spot by the weakness of their sex, or the
infirmity of age, or the attractions of the place, were cut off by the
enemy. Like ruin fell on the town of
Verulamium, for
the barbarians, who delighted in plunder and were indifferent to all else,
passed by the fortresses with military garrisons, and attacked whatever
offered most wealth to the spoiler, and was unsafe for defence. About
seventy thousand citizens and allies, it appeared, fell in the places which
I have mentioned. For it was not on making prisoners and selling them, or on
any of the barter of war, that the enemy was bent, but on slaughter, on the
gibbet, the fire and the cross, like men soon about to pay the penalty, and
meanwhile snatching at instant vengeance.
