uch similar banter. Thus they drew down upon themselves for words,
which, as Plato[560] says, are a very small matter, a very heavy
punishment.[561] The prating of one man also prevented Rome from
becoming free by the removal of Nero. For it was only the night before
the tyrant was to be murdered, and all preparations had been made, when
he that was to do the deed going to the theatre, and seeing someone in
chains near the doors who was about to be taken before Nero, and was
bewailing his sad fortune, went up close to him and whispered, "Pray
only, good sir, that to-day may pass by, to-morrow you will owe me many
thanks." He guessing the meaning of the riddle, and thinking, I take it,
"he is a fool who gives up what is in his hand for a remote
contingency,"[562] preferred certain to honourable safety. For he
informed Nero of what the man had said, and he was immediately arrested,
and torture, and fire, and scourging were applied to him, who denied now
in his necessity what before he had divulged without necessity.

Sec. VIII. Zeno the philosopher,[563] that he might not against his will
divulge any secrets when put to the torture, bit off his tongue, and
spit it at the tyrant. Famous also was the reward which Leaena had for
her taciturnity.[564] She was the mistress of Harmodius and Aristogiton,
and, although a woman, participated in their hopes of success in the
conspiracy against the tyrants: for she had revelled in the glorious cup
of love, and had been initiated in their secrets through the god. When
then they had failed in their attempt and been put to death, and she was
examined and bidden to reveal the names of the other conspirators, she
refused to do so, and held out to the end, showing that those famous men
in loving such a one as her had done nothing unworthy of them. And the
Athenians erected to her memory a bronze lioness without a tongue, and
placed it near the entrance to the Acropolis, signifying her dauntless
courage by the nobleness of that animal, and by its being without a
tongue her silence and fidelity. For no spoken word has done as much
good as many unspoken ones. For at some future day we can give utterance
if we like to what has been not said, but a word once spoken cannot be
recalled, but flies about and runs all round the world. And this is the
reason, I take it, why men teach us to speak, but the gods teach us to
be silent, silence being enjoined on us in the mysteries and in all
religious ri