Instantly Epaphroditus began to pay him the profoundest respect, and to
address him in the most endearing terms, so that if any one asked what
Epaphroditus was doing, the answer, as likely as not, would be, "He is
holding an important consultation with Felicio."
On one occasion, some one came to him bewailing, and weeping, and
embracing his knees in a paroxysm of grief, because of all his fortune
little more than 50,000_l_. was left! "What did Epaphroditus do?" asks
Epictetus; "did he laugh at the man as we did? Not at all; on the
contrary, he exclaimed, in a tone of commiseration and surprise, 'Poor
fellow! how could you possibly keep silence and endure such a
misfortune?'"
How brutally he could behave, and how little respect he inspired, we may
see in the following anecdote. When Plautius Lateranus, the brave
nobleman whose execution during Piso's conspiracy we have already
related, had received on his neck an ineffectual blow of the tribune's
sword, Epaphroditus, even at that dread moment, could not abstain from
pressing him with questions. The only reply which he received from the
dying man was the contemptuous remark, "Should I wish to say anything, I
will say it (not to a slave like you, but) to _your master_.
Pages:
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245