‘Four hundred.’
‘Is that all?’ said Tigellinus. ‘It is lucky that he had no more. They will be executed, every one of them—that’s one comfort. Let us thank the gods for the Silanian law.’
They saw Seneca approaching them; and it was evident that he had heard the news, for his face wore a look of sorrow and alarm.
‘How say you, Seneca?’ asked Lucan; ‘is the Silanian law to be carried out, and are all Pedanius’s four hundred slaves to die?’
‘I should hope not,’ said the philosopher, indignantly. ‘What! are we to butcher this multitude, of whom three hundred and ninety-nine are probably innocent? The Silanian law is fit for barbarians. Every good feeling within us abhors the cruel wrong of murdering young and old, innocent and guilty, in one promiscuous massacre.’
‘But that the Præfect of Rome should be murdered by one of his own slaves!’ murmured his hearers.
‘By one of his own slaves—but maddened, report says, by an intolerable wrong.’
‘Wrong?’ answered Vestinus, in surprise. ‘Are not, then, our slaves our chattels? Has a slave rights?’
‘He has the rights of a human being,’ answered Seneca. ‘Are not our slaves of the same flesh and blood as we? Has not a slave feelings? Has not a slave passions?’
‘Yes; very bad passions,’ said young Vedius Pollio.