arius tells us in the eighteenth book of his "Annals," that
when Grumentum was being besieged, and had been reduced to the greatest
straits, two slaves deserted to the enemy, and did valuable service.
Afterwards, when the city was taken, and the victors were rushing wildly
in every direction, they ran before every one else along the streets,
which they well knew, to the house in which they had been slaves, and
drove their mistress before them; when they were asked who she might
be, they answered that she was their mistress, and a most cruel one, and
that they were leading her away for punishment. They led her outside the
walls, and concealed her with the greatest care until the fighting
was over; then, as the soldiery, satisfied with the sack of the city,
quickly resumed the manners of Romans, they also returned to their
own countrymen, and themselves restored their mistress to them. She
manumitted each of them on the spot, and was not ashamed to receive her
life from men over whom she had held the power of life and death. She
might, indeed, especially congratulate herself upon this; for had
she been saved otherwise, she would merely have received a common and
hackneyed piece of kindness, whereas, by being saved as she was, she
became a glorious legend, and an example to two cities. In the confusion
of the captured city, when every one was thinking only of his own
safety, all deserted her except these deserters; but they, that they
might prove what had been their intentions in effecting that desertion,
deserted again from the victors to the captive, wearing the masks of
unnatural murderers.

They thought--and this was the greatest part of the service which they
rendered--they were content to seem to have murdered their mistress, if
thereby their mistress might be saved from murder. Believe me, it is
the mark of no slavish soul to purchase a noble deed by the semblance of
crime.

When Vettius, the praetor of the Marsi, was being led into the presence
of the Roman general, his slave snatched a sword from the soldier who
was dragging him along, and first slew his master. Then he said, "It is
now time for me to look to myself; I have already set my master free,"
and with these words transfixed himself with one blow. Can you tell me
of anyone who saved his master more gloriously?

XXIV. When Caesar was besieging Corfinium, Domitius, who was shut up in
the city, ordered a slave of his own, who was also a physician, to give