My gorge rose at the idea
of the burning and sacking of Nuceria, even at the slaughter of our cruel
guards, overseers and superintendent. The more I thought the matter over
the less I liked the prospect. I had every reason to hate the dictator and
senators. I saw no likelihood of betterment for myself if I were carried
off with these riffraff as one of a band of looters, murderers and
outlaws, loose in the forests.
I contrived to disclose the plot to the prison authorities. As a result
the _ergastulum_ was entered by the town guards, rigorously searched by
the aldermen and their apparitors, under the aldermen's eyes, all the sawn
bars, files, knives, daggers and swords discovered, the suspected men
tortured till the ring-leaders were identified, the dictator and his
senators flogged and manacled, and the management of the _ergastulum_
renovated.
I was conducted from the prison, given a bath, clothed in a clean, warm
tunic and cloak, provided with good shoes, abundantly fed and put to sleep
in a clean bed in the house of a freedman who watched closely that I did
not escape, but did everything to make me comfortable.
The next day the chief alderman of Nuceria interrogated me at the town
hall, praised me, declared that I had saved the town many horrors and much
damage and loss, and asked me what reward I craved.
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