Spendius immediately ran through the crowd
calling him, "Master! master!"
Matho gave him but scant thanks for his blessings, but Spendius paid no
heed to this, and began to march behind him, from time to time turning
restless glances in the direction of Carthage.
He was the son of a Greek rhetor and a Campanian prostitute. He had at
first grown rich by dealing in women; then, ruined by a shipwreck, he
had made war against the Romans with the herdsmen of Samnium. He had
been taken and had escaped; he had been retaken, and had worked in the
quarries, panted in the vapour-baths, shrieked under torture, passed
through the hands of many masters, and experienced every frenzy. At
last, one day, in despair, he had flung himself into the sea from the
top of a trireme where he was working at the oar. Some of Hamilcar's
sailors had picked him up when at the point of death, and had brought
him to the ergastulum of Megara, at Carthage. But, as fugitives were to
be given back to the Romans, he had taken advantage of the confusion to
fly with the soldiers.
During the whole of the march he remained near Matho; he brought him
food, assisted him to dismount, and spread a carpet in the evening
beneath his head. Matho at last was touched by these attentions, and by
degrees unlocked his lips.
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