§3.43.1ad clades ab hostibus acceptas duo nefanda facinora decemviri belli domique adiciunt. §3.43.2L. Siccium in Sabinis, per invidiam decemviralem tribunorum creandorum secessionisque mentiones ad vulgus militum sermonibus occultis serentem, prospeculatum ad locum: castris capiendum mittunt. §3.43.3datur negotium militibus, quos miserant expeditionis eius comites, ut eum opportuno adorti loco interficerent. §3.43.4haud inultum interfecere; nam circa repugnantem aliquot insidiatores cecidere, cum ipse se praevalidus pari viribus animo circumventus tutaretur. §3.43.5nuntiant in castra ceteri praecipitatum in insidias esse; Siccium egregie pugnantem militesque quosdam cum eo amissos. §3.43.6primo fides nuntiantibus fuit; profecta deinde cohors ad sepeliendos qui ceciderant decemvirorum permissu, postquam nullum spoliatum ibi corpus Sicciumque in medio iacentem armatum omnibus in eum versis corporibus videre, hostium neque corpus ullum nec vestigia abeuntium, profecto ab suis interfectum memorantes rettulere corpus. §3.43.7invidiaeque plena castra erant, et Romam ferri protinus Siccium placebat, ni decemviri funus militare ei publica inpensa facere maturassent.
To the defeats sustained from the enemy, the decemvirs add two heinous crimes, both in war and at home. In the territory of the Sabines, they send Lucius Siccius—who, out of hatred for the decemvirs, was spreading rumors among the common soldiers in secret conversations about electing tribunes and about a secession—to reconnoiter a place: to be taken for a camp. A task is given to the soldiers whom they had sent as his companions on that expedition, to attack and kill him at a convenient spot. They did not kill him with impunity; for some of the ambushers fell around him as he fought back, since he himself, extremely strong, protected himself, though surrounded, with a spirit equal to his physical strength. The others report in the camp that he had fallen into an ambush; that Siccius, fighting excellently, and certain soldiers with him had been lost. At first, belief was given to the reporters; but then, a cohort, having set out with the permission of the decemvirs to bury those who had fallen, after they saw no body stripped there, and Siccius lying in the middle, armed, with all the bodies turned toward him, and neither any body of the enemy nor any tracks of those departing, they brought back the body, declaring that he had certainly been killed by his own men. And the camp was full of hatred, and it was the general wish that Siccius should be carried immediately to Rome, had not the decemvirs hastened to give him a military funeral at public expense.
sepultus ingenti militum maestitia, pessima decemvirorum in vulgus fama est.
He was buried with great grief of the soldiers, and the reputation of the decemvirs among the common people was most shameful.