Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/293

 STRATAGEMS, III. xii. 2-.iii. 6

When certain ones rebuked this procedure as cruel, he answered : " I left him as I found him." ^

Epaminondas the Theban is said, on one occasion, to have done the same thing.

XIII. On Sending and Receiving Messages

When the Romans were besieged in the Capitol, they sent Pontius Cominius to implore Camillus to come to their aid. Pontius, to elude the pickets of the Gauls, let himself down over the Tarpeian Rock, swam the Tiber, and reached Veii. Havmg accomplished his errand, he returned by the same route to his friends.-

When the Romans were maintaining careful guard against the inhabitants of Capua, whom they were besieging, the latter sent a certain fellow in the guise of a deserter, and he, finding an opportunity to escape, conveyed to the Carthaginians a letter which he had secreted in his belt.^

Some have written messages on skins and then sewed these to the carcasses of game or sheep.

Some have stuffed the message under the tail of a mule while passing the picket-posts.

Some have written on the linings of scabbards.

When the Cyzicenes were besieged by Mithridates, Lucius Lucullus wished to inform them of his ap- proach. There was a single narrow entrance to the city, connecting the island with the mainland by a small bridge. Since this was held by forces of the enemy, he sewed some letters up inside two inflated skins and then ordered one of his soldiers, an adept

^211 B.C. Liv}' xxvi. 7 represents Hannibal as sending the letter to the Capuans.

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