Читать книгу Yale Classics (Vol. 2) - Луций Анней Сенека - Страница 339

Two of our ships, that had not kept up with the rest, being overtaken by the night, and not knowing what port the rest had made to, came to an anchor opposite Lissus. Otacilius Crassus, who commanded Pompey's fleet, detached after them several barges and small craft, and attempted to take them. At the same time, he treated with them about capitulating, and promised them their lives if they would surrender. One of them carried two hundred and twenty recruits, the other was manned with somewhat less than two hundred veterans. Here it might be seen what security men derive from a resolute spirit. For the recruits, frightened at the number of vessels, and fatigued with the rolling of the sea, and with sea-sickness, surrendered to Otacilius, after having first received his oath, that the enemy would not injure them; but as soon as they were brought before him, contrary to the obligation of his oath, they were inhumanly put to death in his presence. But the soldiers of the veteran legion, who had also struggled, not only with the inclemency of the weather, but by laboring at the pump, thought it their duty to remit nothing of their former valor: and having protracted the beginning of the night in settling the terms, under pretense of surrendering, they obliged the pilot to run the ship aground: and having got a convenient place on the shore, they spent the rest of the night there, and at day-break, when Otacilius had sent against them a party of the horse, who guarded that part of the coast, to the number of four hundred, beside some armed men, who had followed them from the garrison, they made a brave defense, and having killed some of them, retreated in safety to our army.