Whether of the twain slew Lentulus? whether of the twain set free Paul, from the Tullianum?
In those days, there was a tall and massive structure above that sordid and tremendous vault, on the right hand as you go up towards the capitol.
The steps of the asylum were lined on either side by legionaries in full armor; and as the Consul walked up with his victim, side by side, each soldier faced about, and, by a simple movement, doubling their files, occupied the whole space of the steep ascent with a solid column; while all the heights above, and the great capitol itself, bristled with spears, and flashed with tawny light from the dense ranks of brazen corslets.
The Capital Triumvirs received the Consul at the door; and with his prisoner he passed inward.
It was in perfect keeping with the Roman character, that a man, hopeless of success, should die without an effort; and to the fullest, Lentulus acted out that character.
Impassive and unmoved, he went to his death. He disgraced his evil life by no cowardice in death; by no fruitless call upon the people for assistance, by no vain cry to the nobles for mercy.
But it was the impassibility of the Epicurean, not of the Stoic, that sustained him.
He went to die, like his brother democrats of France, with the madness of Atheism in his heart, the mirth of Perdition on his tongue.
They two, the Convict and the Consul, ascended a little,[pg 155] two or three steps, to the left, and entered a large apartment, paved, walled, and roofed with stone; but in the centre of the floor there was a small round aperture.
There were a dozen persons in that guard-room, four of whom were his fellow-traitors—Gabinius, Statilius, Cæparius, and Cethegus—two prætors, four legionaries, and two Moorish slaves composed the group, until with the Triumvirs, and his twelve lictors, Cicero entered.