Did I not forbid you this day to utter anything false to me? TYNDARUS You did forbid me. HEGIO Why did you dare to tell me lies? TYNDARUS Because the truth would have prejudiced him whom I was serving; now falsehood has advantaged him. HEGIO But it will prejudice yourself. TYNDARUS ’Tis very good. Still, I have saved my master, whom I rejoice at being saved, to whom my elder master had assigned me as a protector. But do you think that this was wrongly done? HEGIO Most wrongfully. TYNDARUS But I, who disagree with you, say, rightly. For consider, if any slave of yours had done this for your son, what thanks you would have given him. Would you have given that slave his freedom or not? Would not that slave have been in highest esteem with you? Answer me that. HEGIO I think so. TYNDARUS Why, then, are you angry with me? HEGIO Because you have proved more faithful to him than to myself. TYNDARUS How now? Did you expect, in a single night and day, for yourself to teach me—a person just made captive, a recent slave, and in his noviciate—that I should rather consult your interest than his, with whom from childhood I have passed my life? HEGIO Seek, then, thanks from him for that. (To the SLAVES.) Take him where he may receive weighty and thick fetters, thence, after that, you shall go to the quarries for cutting stone. There, while the others are digging out eight stones, unless you daily do half as much work again, you shall have the name of the six-hundred-stripe man Six-hundred- stripe man : Sexcentoplago. This is a compound word, coined by the author. . ARISTOPHONTES By Gods and men, I do entreat you, Hegio, not to destroy this man. HEGIO He shall be taken all care of He shall be taken all care of : Struck with admiration at his fidelity, Aristophontes begs Hegio not to destroy Tyndarus. As the verb perduis might also mean lose him, Hegio ironically takes it in the latter sense, and says that there is no fear of that, for he shall be well taken care of; or, in other words, strictly watched. For at night, fastened with chains, he shall be watched; in the daytime, beneath the ground, he shall be getting out stone. For many a day will I torture him; I’ll not respite him for a single day. ARISTOPHONTES Is that settled by you? HEGIO Not more settled that I shall die. (To the SLAVES.) Take him away this instant to Hippolytus, the blacksmith; bid thick fetters to be rivetted on him. From there let him be led outside the gate to my freedman, Cordalus, at the stone-quarries. And tell him that I desire this man so to be treated, that he mayn’t be in any respect worse off than he who is the most severely treated. TYNDARUS Why, since you are unwilling, do I desire myself to survive? At your own hazard is the risk of my life. After death, no evil have I to apprehend in death. Though I should live even to extreme age, still, short is the space for enduring what you threaten me with. Farewell and prosper although you are deserving for me to say otherwise. You, Aristophontes, as you have deserved of me, so fare you; for on your account has this befallen me. HEGIO (to the SLAVES.) Carry him off. TYNDARUS But this one thing I beg, that, if Philocrates should come back here, you will give me an opportunity of meeting him. HEGIO (to the SLAVES.) At your peril, if you don’t this instant remove him from my sight. (The SLAVES lay hold of TYNDARUS, and push him along.) TYNDARUS I’ troth, this really is violence This really is violence : According to Suetonius, Julius Caesar used an exactly similar expression when first attacked by his murderers in the senate-house. On Tullius Cimber seizing hold of his garments he exclaimed, Ita quidem vis est! Why, really, this is violence! , to be both dragged and pushed at the same time. (He is borne off by the SLAVES.) HEGIO He has been led off straight to prison To prison : Phylacam. This is a Greek word Latinized, meaning prison or confinement. as he deserves. Let no one presume to attempt such an enterprise. Had it not been for you who discovered this to me,