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Saturday, July 24, 2010 - 4:51 PM
This ended the war. Dolabella asked for triumphal distinctions,
but was refused by Tiberius, out of compliment to
Sejanus, the glory of
whose uncle Blaesus he did not wish to be forgotten.
But this did not make
Blaesus more famous, while the refusal of the honour
heightened Dolabella's
renown. He had, in fact, with a smaller army, brought
back with him illustrious
prisoners and the fame of having slain the enemy's
leader and terminated
the war. In his train were envoys from the Garamantes,
a rare spectacle
in Rome. The nation, in its terror at the destruction
of Tacfarinas, and
innocent of any guilty intention, had sent them to
crave pardon of the
Roman people. And now that this war had proved the
zealous loyalty of Ptolemaeus,
a custom of antiquity was revived, and one of the
Senators was sent to
present him with an ivory sceptre and an embroidered
robe, gifts anciently
bestowed by the Senate, and to confer on him the
titles of king, ally,
and friend.
The same summer, the germs of a slave war in
Italy were crushed
by a fortunate accident. The originator of the
movement was Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire,
once a soldier of the praetorian guard. First, by
secret meetings at Brundisium
and the neighbouring towns, then by placards publicly
exhibited, he incited
the rural and savage slave-population of the remote
forests to assert their
freedom. By divine providence, three vessels came to
land for the use of
those who traversed that sea. In the same part of the
country too was Curtius
Lupus, the quaestor, who, according to ancient
precedent, had had the charge
of the "woodland pastures" assigned to him. Putting in
motion a force of
marines, he broke up the seditious combination in its
very first beginnings.
The emperor at once sent Staius, a tribune, with a
strong detachment, by
whom the ringleader himself, with his most daring
followers, were brought
prisoners to Rome where men already trembled at the
vast scale of the slave-establishments,
in which there was an immense growth, while the
freeborn populace daily
decreased.
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