History of Rome

​In Gaul, indeed, nothing worthy of mention was accomplished by the consul Sextus Aelius.

​Although he had had two armies in the province, one retained, which ought to have been disbanded, and which the proconsul Lucius Cornelius had commanded—he himself placed the praetor Gaius Helvius over it—, and the other, which ​he had brought into the province, he spent almost the whole year in compelling the people of Cremona and Placentia to return to their colonies, whence they had been scattered by the misfortunes of war.

​Just as Gaul was unexpectedly quiet that year, so around the city a slave uprising was almost ​excited. The hostages of the Carthaginians were being guarded at Setia. With them, as being the children of leading men, there was a great multitude of slaves.

​Their number was increased, as was natural after the recent African war, and also by the Setians themselves, who had bought some captive slaves of that nation from the booty.

​When they had formed a conspiracy, they sent some of their number to stir up the slaves, first in the territory of Setia, and then around Norba and Circeii; and when all things were now sufficiently prepared, they determined to attack the people, who would be intent on the spectacle, at the games which were soon to be held at Setia.

​Once Setia was captured by slaughter and sudden riot, they planned to occupy Norba and Circeii * * the slaves. Information of so foul a matter was brought to Rome, to Lucius Cornelius Lentulus, the city praetor.

​Two slaves came to him before daybreak and set forth in order everything that had been done and was to be done.

​Having ordered them to be guarded at his house, the praetor, after convening the senate and informing them of what the informants brought, was ordered to set out to investigate and suppress that conspiracy. ​Setting out with five legates, he compelled those whom he met in the fields, after administering the military oath, to take up arms and follow him.

​With this hasty levy, nearly two thousand men having been armed, he arrived at Setia, with everyone ignorant of where he was going.

​There, the leaders of the conspiracy having been quickly arrested, a flight of the slaves from the town took place. Then, men were dispatched through the fields to track them down * * *.

​The service of the two slave informants and of the one free man was outstanding. The fathers ordered one hundred thousand asses of heavy bronze to be given to him, and twenty-five thousand asses of bronze each to the slaves, along with their freedom;

​the price of them was paid to their masters from the treasury. Not very long afterward, from the remnants of the same conspiracy, it was reported that the slaves were about to seize Praeneste.

​Thither the praetor Lucius Cornelius set out and inflicted punishment on nearly five hundred men who were involved in that guilt. The state was in fear that the hostages and captives of the Carthaginians were plotting such a thing.

​Therefore, both at Rome night-watches were kept through the streets and the minor magistrates were ordered to go around them, and the triumvirs of the prison were ordered to keep a stricter guard over the stone quarries, ​and throughout the Latin name letters were sent by the praetor, directing both that the hostages should be kept in private custody and not be given the opportunity of appearing in public, and that the captives, bound in fetters of not less than ten pounds’ weight, should be kept in no other custody than that of the public prison.