he 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.

I answered, boldly, that what I craved was what all slaves craved:
freedom.

He replied that, in his opinion, I had merited manumission; but that I was
not the property of the municipality of Nuceria, but of the _fiscus_;
[Footnote: See Note B.] I was, in short, part of the personal property of
the Emperor and could be manumitted only by the Emperor, or by one of his
legal representatives. Such a manumission would be difficult to arrange
and its arrangement would take a long time. He would set to work to try to
arrange for it. Meantime, could I not ask some reward within their power
to grant?

I at once replied that I desired above all things never to be returned to
that _ergastulum_.

This he promised immediately, saying that recommitment there would be
equivalent to a sentence of torture and death, since my late associates,
infuriated at my treachery, as they named it, would certainly inflict on
me all the torments their malignity could suggest and keep on till I died.
He added that he and the other aldermen had never meant to recommit me;
deliverance from that _ergastulum_. they considered part of my reward and
that the least part of it. What else did I desire?

"If," said I, "I must remain a slave and, remaining the property of
Caesar, must be employed as the administration of the _fiscus_ direct, at
least try to arrange that I be employed out of doors far from any town, on
a slave farm, or at herding or wood-cutting or charcoal-burning. I have
heard that many of Caesar's slave-gangs are busy afield, on farms, or
pasture-lands or in the forests."

"That," said the alderman, "will be easy. Afield you shall go--eve