Читать книгу The Greatest Works of Roman Classical Literature - Луций Анней Сенека - Страница 254

Petreius, after accomplishing this, went round every maniple, calling the soldiers by their names, and entreating with tears that they would not give up him and their absent general Pompey, as a sacrifice to the vengeance of their enemies. Immediately they ran in crowds to the general's pavilion, when he required them all to take an oath that they would not desert nor betray the army nor the generals, nor form any design distinct from the general interest. He himself swore first to the tenor of those words, and obliged Afranius to take the same oath. The tribunes and centurions followed their example; the soldiers were brought out by centuries, and took the same oath. They gave orders, that whoever had any of Caesar's soldiers should produce them; as soon as they were produced, they put them to death publicly in the praetorium, but most of them concealed those that they had entertained, and let them out at night over the rampart. Thus the terror raised by the generals, the cruelty of the punishments, the new obligation of an oath, removed all hopes of surrender for the present, changed the soldiers' minds, and reduced matters to the former state of war.