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saved. Those services were rendered by those servants to their benefactors in return for some kindness previously received. There was also a branded runaway who so far from betraying the man who had branded him very willingly preserved him. He was detected in carrying him away and was being pursued, when he killed somebody who met him by chance and gave the latter's clothes to his master. Having then placed him upon a pyre he himself took his master's clothing and ring and going to meet the pursuers pretended that he had killed the man while fleeing. Because of his spoils and the marks of the branding he was believed and both saved the person in question and was himself honored. The names connected with the above anecdotes have not been preserved. But in the case of Hosidius Greta his son arranged a funeral for him as though already dead and preserved him in that way. Quintus Cicero, the brother of Marcus, was secretly led away by his child and saved, so far as his rescuer's responsibility went. The boy concealed his father so well that he could not be discovered and when tormented for it by all kinds of torture did not utter a syllable. His father, learning what was being done, was filled at once with admiration and pity for the boy, and therefore came voluntarily to view and surrendered himself to the slayers. [-11-] This gives an idea of the greatness of the manifest achievements of virtue and piety at the time. It was Popillius Laenas who killed Marcus Cicero, in spite of the latter's having done him favors as his advocate; and in order that he might depend not wholly on hearsay but also on the sense of sight to establish himself as the murderer of the orator, he set up an image of himself wearing a crown beside his victim's head, with an inscription that gave his name and the service rendered. By this act he pleased Antony so much that he secured more than the price offered. Marcus Terentius Varro was a man who had given no offence, but as his appellation was identical with that of one of the proscribed, except for one name, he was afraid that, this might lead him to suffer such a fate as did Cinna. Therefore he issued a statement making known this fact; he was tribune at the time. For this he became the subject of much idle amusement and laughter. The uncertainty of life, however, was evidenced by the very fact that Lucius Philuscius, who had previously been proscribed by Sulla and had escaped, had his name no
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