§38.24.1supererat bellum integrum cum Tectosagis.
A whole war with the Tectosages remained.
ad eos profectus consul tertiis castris Ancyram, nobilem in illis locis urbem, pervenit, unde hostes paulo plus decem milia aberant.
The consul, having set out to them, on the third day's camp reached Ancyra, a famous city in those parts, from which the enemy was a little more than ten miles away.
§38.24.2ubi cum stativa essent, facinus memorabile a captiva factum est.
When there was a permanent camp there, a memorable deed was done by a female prisoner.
Orgiagontis reguli uxor forma eximia custodiebatur inter plures captivos; cui custodiae centurio praeerat et libidinis et avaritiae militaris.
The wife of the petty king Orgiagon, of extraordinary beauty, was guarded among many prisoners; a centurion of both lust and military avarice was in charge of that custody.
§38.24.3is primo animum temptavit; quem cum abhorrentem a voluntario videret stupro, corpori, quod servum fortuna erat, vim fecit.
He first tried her mind; when he saw her shrinking from voluntary violation, he did violence to her body, which by fortune was a slave.
§38.24.4deinde ad leniendam indignitatem iniuriae spem reditus ad suos mulieri facit, et ne eamquidem, ut amans, gratuitam.
Then, to soothe the indignity of the injury, he gave the woman hope of return to her people, and not even that, as a lover, did he grant for free.
certo auri pondere pactus, ne quem suorum conscium haberet, ipsi permittit, ut, quem vellet, §38.24.5unum ex captivis nuntium ad suos mitteret locum prope flumen constituit, quo duo ne plus necessarii captivae cum auro venirent nocte insequenti ad eam accipiendam.
Having agreed upon a certain weight of gold, so that he might not have any of his men as an accomplice, he permitted her that, whom she wished, she might send one of the prisoners as a messenger to her people; he established a place near the river, where no more than two relatives of the prisoner should come with the gold on the following night to receive her.
§38.24.6forte ipsius mulieris servus inter captivos eiusdem custodiae erat.
By chance, a slave of the woman herself was among the prisoners of the same custody.
hunc nuntium primis tenebris extra stationes centurio educit.
This messenger the centurion led out beyond the outposts at the first darkness.
§38.24.7nocte insequenti et duo necessarii mulieris ad constitutum locum et centurio cum captiva venit.
On the following night, both the two relatives of the woman came to the established place, and the centurion arrived with the prisoner.
§38.24.8ubi cum aurum ostenderent, quod summam talenti Attici — tanti enim pepigerat — expleret, mulier lingua sua, stringerent ferrum et centurionem pensantem aurum occiderent, imperavit.
When they showed the gold there, which filled the sum of an Attic talent—for he had agreed on so much—the woman commanded in her own language that they should draw their iron and kill the centurion who was weighing the gold.
§38.24.9iugulati praecisum caput ipsa involutum veste ferens ad virum Orgiagontem, qui ab Olympo domum refugerat, pervenit; quem priusquam complecteretur, §38.24.10caput centurionis ante pedes eius abiecit, mirantique, cuiusnam id caput hominis aut quod id facinus haudquaquam muliebre esset, et iniuriam corporis et ultionem violatae per vim pudicitiae confessa viro est, §38.24.11aliaque, ut traditur, sanctitate et gravitate vitae huius matronalis facinoris decus ad ultimum conservavit.
Carrying the cut-off head of the slain man wrapped in her garment, she herself reached her husband Orgiagon, who had fled back home from Olympus; before she embraced him, she cast down the head of the centurion before his feet, and to her husband, who was wondering whose head of a man it was or what deed it was, by no means womanly, she confessed both the injury of her body and the vengeance of her chastity violated by force, and by the other purity and gravity of her life, as it is handed down, she preserved the honor of this matronly deed to the last.