Add to this consideration all the chances; add the always uncertain result of a battle, and the common fortune of Mars, who often overthrows the man who is already exulting and stripping his enemy, and strikes him to the ground by some mean agent; add the blundering conduct of a leader who had dined and drank, and who was yawning and drowsy; who, when he had left his enemy cut off in the rear, never thought of his companions on the outskirts of his train; and then when he fell among them inflamed with anger, and despairing of saving the life of their master, he fell on that punishment which the faithful slaves inflicted on him as a retribution for their master's death. Why, then, has Milo emancipated them? [57] He was afraid, I suppose, lest they should give information against him; lest they should be unable to bear pain; lest they should be compelled by tortures to confess that Publius Clodius was slain in the Appian road by the slaves of Milo.
What need is there of any torturer? What do you want to know? whether he was slain? He was slain. Whether he was slain lawfully or unlawfully? That is beyond the province of the torturer. For the rack can only inquire into the fact; it is the bench of judges that must decide on the law. [cap.22]