History of Rome

​Heraclia was the daughter of Hiero and the wife of Zoippus, who, having been sent by Hieronymus as an envoy to King Ptolemy, had chosen voluntary exile.

​When she had learned in advance that they were coming for her as well, she fled into the sanctuary of the household gods with her two virgin daughters, with disheveled hair and in other miserable attire, and to this plight she added her prayers, ​entreating now by the gods, now by the memory of her father Hiero and her brother Gelon, that they would not allow an innocent woman to be consumed by the hatred felt for Hieronymus.

​She pleaded that she possessed nothing from his reign except her husband’s exile; her fortune during the lifetime of Hieronymus had not been the same as her sister’s, nor was her situation the same after his death.

​What? If the plans of Adranodorus had succeeded, her sister would have ruled with her husband, while she would have had to serve with the rest.

​If anyone should report to Zoippus that Hieronymus had been killed and Syracuse liberated, who could doubt that he would immediately board a ship and return to his country?

​How greatly the hopes of men are deceived! In his liberated country, his wife and children are fighting for their lives—in what way are they standing in the way of liberty or the laws?

​What danger could there be to anyone from her, a woman alone and almost a widow, and girls living in a state of orphanage? But indeed, it might be said that no danger is feared from her, yet the royal stock is hated. Let them then banish them far from Syracuse and Sicily, ​and order the wife to be carried to Alexandria to her husband, and the daughters to their father.

​With ears and minds averted, they asked why they delayed, and warned lest they waste time, urging one another on. When she saw some of them drawing their swords, ​then, omitting prayers for herself, she began to beg that they would at least spare the girls, from whose age even angry enemies refrain; and that they should not, by avenging tyrants, themselves imitate the crimes they hated.

​Midst these pleas, they dragged her from the inner sanctuary and cut her throat; they then made an onset upon the girls, who were spattered with their mother’s blood. Out of their minds with grief and fear, and as if seized by madness, they rushed from the sanctuary with such speed that, if an escape into the public street had been open, they would have filled the city with tumult.

​Even as it was, in the small space of the house, they several times escaped unharmed through the midst of so many armed men, and tore themselves away from those who held them, although there were so many and such strong hands to be struggled against.

​At last, exhausted by wounds, after they had covered everything with blood, they fell dead. And a circumstance made the slaughter, miserable in itself, still more miserable: for a little later a messenger arrived, the minds of the people having suddenly changed to pity, ordering that they should not be killed.

​Anger then arose from their pity, because the execution had been so hastened, and no room for repentance or retreat from anger had been left.

​Therefore, the multitude began to murmur and demand an election to fill the places of Adranodorus and Themisto—for both had been praetors—an election which would by no means be according to the wishes of the remaining praetors.