"Fellow!" he ranted, "you have plotted to rob and murder your master, you have done both and you have, by favor and influence and perhaps even by bribery, arranged for your easy acquittal. I am charged by the Prince of the Republic to see to it, that the majesty of the law, the sacredness of the lives of Roman noblemen, and the security of their property be publicly vindicated: I am here to undo all that Lollius Corbulo supinely allowed to be done. You shall perceive that I am wholly unlike any such trifler. Of one feature only of his procedure do I approve. I highly acclaim his notions as to the right kind of torture. Slaves like you, however pampered, are property, like horses or cattle. Their value lies in their usefulness. Any slave, after torture, should be as useful to his owners as before. If a slave is placed upon the horse and weights hung to his feet, his legs are often made helpless, he cannot ever walk again, he is a cripple. Still oftener does the rack leave a slave utterly useless. Our courts have always desired some form of torture by which the recalcitrant could be made to suffer acute pain, but not in any way injured. Lollius has introduced a torture which never injures anyone subjected to it, but which causes extreme agony while in use. Only stretch a hard-yarn Spanish blanket over a thigh, draw it tight and hold the thigh at just the right distance from just the right size of brazier with its coals properly tended, and the subject can be made to tell the truth; but not broiled alive, for the blanket will singe before the flesh under it cooks. You had best tell the truth, not such an ingenious string of lies as you told before Lollius."
Then he had all my fellow-slaves brought up and ranged before him.
"Your master," he said, "has been foully done to death. If the guilt of this hideous crime can be indubitably fastened upon one of you or two or any few, the rest of you shall be held innocent and shall suffer no penalties. If no facts can be ascertained limiting the guilt to some of you, all of you, according to the ancient law concerning such cases, shall be put to death by crucifixion or exposure to the beasts in the arena, as our Prince may prefer. I have no desire to send to death any guiltless man. I enjoin you all to tell the truth and to assist the law. The truth- tellers will suffer less of the torture."
He then, beginning with the scullions, had every boy and man tortured over the brazier, asking no question of any till he had felt the heat of the fire and had begun to yell for mercy. Then he would interrupt the torture, question the victim, bid the torturers again hold their subject close to the fire; and again suspend the torture and ask questions. Naturally the victims, frantic with pain and terror, said whatever they thought would get them off.
Also, to my horror, I realized for the first time, what I had only vaguely suspected before, how venomously they had envied me, how violently embittered most of them were against me, how they had hated their master's favorite. They were glad to slander me, they enjoyed assisting at my ruin, they relished the prospect of my being tortured and executed. Moreover it appeared that they had been carefully coached in what they were to say or had agreed among themselves, without any outside hints, or after such hints.
The whole household made it appear that they had always suspected me of desiring Falco's death in order that I might gain my freedom and enjoy his promised legacies; that I had enticed and wheedled him into leaving me in his will an absurdly large share of his property.
They were also unanimous in declaring that they had been unable to bring home to me the devising of the robbery of the triclinium, but they had all felt certain from the first that I had arranged to have confederates of mine steal the table silver. They were equally consistent in asserting that they all believed that I had murdered Falco, after arranging for the looting of the gem-collection as a blind.
Hour after hour I had to stand and watch wretch after wretch held to the glowing coals, had to listen to the shrieks of the victims, could not but realize that Ravillanus was bent on my conviction, that nothing would swerve him from his purpose.
Dromo, alone of all the household, alone of my obsequious, indulged personal servants, held out against the torture and though he writhed, yelled, sobbed and even endured the pain until he fainted more than once, refused to say anything against me.
After Dromo my turn came. When I was stripped Ravillanus rubbed his hands and remarked: