The Senate was then
consulted and sentences of exile were passed on Cassius and Silanus. As to
Lepida, the em-
POPPÆA'S DEATH;
EXECUTIONS |
peror was to decide. Cassius was transported to the island
of
Sardinia, and he was quietly left to old age.
Silanus was removed to
Ostia, whence, it was
pretended, he was to be conveyed to
Naxos. He was afterwards confined in a town of
Apulia named
Barium. There, as he was wisely enduring a
most undeserved calamity, he was suddenly seized by a centurion sent to slay
him. When the man advised him to sever his veins, he replied that, though he
had resolved in his heart to die, he would not let a cutthroat have the
glory of the service. The centurion seeing that, unarmed as he was, he was
very powerful, and more like an enraged than a frightened man, ordered his
soldiers to overpower him. And Silanus failed not to resist and to strike
blows, as well as he could with his bare hands, till he was cut down by the
centurion, as though in battle, with wounds in his breast.
