rest. Can any one doubt, that if information
should be conveyed to Zoippus that Hieronymus had been put to death,
and that Syracuse was free, he would instantly embark and return to
his native land. But how are all human hopes deceived! His wife and
children are struggling for their lives in his native land, now
blessed with liberty! In what manner standing in the way of liberty or
the laws? What danger could arise to any one from them, from a
solitary, and in a manner, widowed woman and girls living in a state
of orphanage? But perhaps it will be granted that no danger is to be
apprehended from them, but alleged that the whole royal family is
detested. If this were the case, she entreated that they would banish
them far from Syracuse and Sicily, and order them to be conveyed to
Alexandria, the wife to her husband, the daughters to their father."
Seeing that their ears and minds were unimpressed, and that certain of
them were drawing their swords to prevent a fruitless consumption of
time, she gave over entreating for herself, and began to implore them
to "spare, at least, her daughters, at an age which even exasperated
enemies spared." She entreated them "that they would not, in their
revenge on tyrants, themselves imitate the crimes which were odious to
them." While thus employed, they dragged her from the sanctuary and
murdered her; and after that they fell upon the virgins, who were
sprinkled with the blood of their mother; who, distracted alike by
fear and grief, and as if seized with madness, rushed out of the
chapel with such rapidity, that had there been an opening by which
they might have escaped into the street, they would have filled the
city with confusion. As it was, they several times made their escape
through the midst of so many armed men with their persons uninjured in
the contracted space which the house afforded, and extricated
themselves from their grasp, though they had to disengage themselves
from so many and such strong hands; but at length enfeebled by wounds,
and after covering every place with blood, they fell down lifeless.
This murder, piteous as it was in itself, was rendered still more so
by its happening that a short time after it a message arrived that
they should not be killed, as the minds of the people were now turned
to compassion. This compassion then gave rise to a feeling of anger,
because so much haste had been shown in carrying the punishment into
effect, and because no opportunit