I saw
not only privations, discomforts, hunger, confinement and chains
threatening me, but scourging and torture.
I acquiesced.
Now I am not going into any details as to what I did and said to induce
Pullanius and his associates to execute the desired contract. I acted the
part of Salinator to perfection and my imposture succeeded completely.
But the negotiations dragged, for all that, and I had to impersonate
Salsonius Salinator not only before Pullanius and his partners but
generally all over Rome: had to submit to being shown the sights in my
character of a provincial magnate in Rome for the first time; had to allow
myself to be dragged to morning receptions of senators and wealthy
noblemen and introduced to them; had to accept invitations to dinners
given by noblemen and senators; even had to attend a public morning
reception in the Audience Hall of the Palace. That I escaped undetected
was more than miraculous; I could not believe it myself. But I did escape.
I escaped unsuspected the ordeal of being haled to a morning reception of
Vedius Vedianus and presented to him as Salsonius Salinator of Carthage,
Nepte and Putea. I should have been lost had he had at his elbow to jog
his memory if he forgot a visitor's name the slave he had had in that
capacity seven years before, since that alert _nomenclator_ would have
recognized me at once.
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