[119]
Oh great and intolerable agony! oh terrible and bitter
ill-fortune! Parents were compelled to purchase, not the life of their children, but
a swiftness of execution for them. And the young men themselves also negotiated with
Sextius about the same execution, and about that one blow; and at last, children
entreated their parents to give money to the lictor for the sake of shortening their
sufferings. Many and terrible sufferings have been invented for parents and
relations; many—still death is the last of all. It shall not be. Is there
any further advance that cruelty can make? One stall be found—for, when
their children have been executed and slain, their bodies shall be exposed to wild
beasts. If this is a miserable thing for a parent to endure, let him pay money for
leave to bury him. You heard Onasus the Segestan, a man of noble birth, say that he
had paid money to Timarchides for leave to bury the naval captain, Heraclius. And
this (that you may not be able to say, “Yes, the fathers come, angry at
the loss of their sons,”) is stated by a man of the highest consideration,
a man of the noblest birth; and he does not state it with respect to any son of his
own. And as to this, who was there at Syracuse at that time, who did not hear, and who does not know that
these bargains for permission to bury were made with Timarchides by the living
relations of those who had been put to death? Did they not speak openly with
Timarchides? Were not all the relations of all the men present? Were not the
funerals of living men openly bargained for? And then, when all those matters were
settled and arranged, the men are brought out of prison and tied to the stake.
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