Page:Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.djvu/560

 apparent respect (but in pursuance of a deliberate plot), invited him to supper. Para, fearing no hostility, came, and was placed in the seat of honour at the feast.

20. Exquisite delicacies were set before him, and the splendid palace resounded with the music of lyres and lutes. Presently, when the wine had circulated freely, the master of the feast quitted it for a moment, under pretence of some natural want, and immediately a ferocious barbarian of the troop they call Suprae was sent in, brandishing a drawn sword, and with a terribly ferocious countenance, to murder the youth, against whose escape ample precautions had now been taken.

21. As soon as he saw him, the king, who as it happened was on the further side of the couch, jumped up and drew his dagger to defend his life by every means in his power, but was stabbed in the breast, and fell like a miserable victim, being shamefully cut to pieces with repeated blows.

22. By this foul contrivance was his credulity shamefully deceived at a feast which is respected even on the coast of the Euxine Sea, under the eye of the Deity of Hospitality; and the blood of a stranger and a guest was sprinkled on the splendid tablecloths, and, by its foaming gore, filled the guests with loathing, who at once dispersed in great horror. If the dead can feel sorrow or indignation, then let that illustrious Fabricius Luscinus groan at the evidence of this deed, knowing with what greatness of mind he himself repelled Demochares (or, as some call him, Nicias), the king's servant, who in a secret conference offered to poison Pyrrhus, at that time desolating Italy with cruel wars, and wrote to the king, bidding him beware of his immediate attendants: such great reverence in the first ages of antiquity was there for the rights of hospitality even when claimed by an enemy.

28. But this modern, strange, and shameful act was excused by the precedent afforded by the death of Sertorius; though the emperor's flatterers were perhaps ignorant