Chapter 55

Cassius ordered the arrest of those who had been named as privy to the murderous plot and, retaining five cohorts of the Thirtieth legion, sent the rest back to camp. From the evidence of Minucius he learned that L. Racilius and L. Laterensis and Annius Scapula—the last a provincial of the highest standing and influence, with whom he was on as intimate a footing as with Racilius and Laterensis—had all been involved in that same conspiracy and it was not long before he gave expression to his indignation by ordering their execution. Minucius he handed over to his freedmen for torture: likewise Calpurnius Salvianus, who made a formal deposition in which he named a larger number of conspirators—truthfully, according to the belief of certain people under duress, as some complain. Similar torture was applied to L. Mercello:... Squillus mentioned more names. Cassius ordered their execution, except for those who bought themselves off. For example, he openly made a bargain in fact with Calpurnius for sixty thousand sesterces, and with Q. Sestius for fifty thousand. And if their extreme guilt earned them a corresponding fine, yet the fact that the peril of death and the pain of torture was remitted for cash showed how in Cassius cruelty had vied with greed.