I shall proceed now to cite a number of instances of benefits that differ from each other and are in some cases contradictory. One gave to his master life, one gave death, one saved him when he was about to perish, and, if this is not enough, one saved him by perishing himself; another helped his master to die, another baffled his desire.
Claudius Quadrigarius relates, in the eighteenth book of his Annals, that, during the siege of Grumentum, just when the city had reached its most desperate plight, two slaves deserted to the enemy and there did good service. Later, after the city had been captured, while the victors were rushing hither and thither, that the two ran ahead along the well-known streets to the house in which they had been slaves, and drove forth their mistress in front of them; that, if anyone asked who she was, they stated that she had been their mistress, and, indeed, a most cruel one, and that they were taking her off to punishment. But that afterwards, when they had brought her outside the walls, they concealed her with the utmost care until the fury of the enemy subsided, and later, when the soldiers, quickly glutted, returned to the normal conduct of Romans, that they, too, returned to theirs, and of their own accord gave themselves into the power of their mistress. She manumitted both on the spot, and did not think it beneath her to have received her life at the hands of those over whom she had once had the power of life and death. Instead, she might even have congratulated herself upon this fact; for, if she had been saved by other hands, she would have had the mere gift of well-known and common mercy, but, as it was, she became famous in story, and an example to two cities. In the great confusion of the city, at a time when every one was thinking of his own interest, she was deserted by all except these deserters; but they, playing the role of being her murderers, deserted from the victors to the captive lady in order to reveal the purpose that had led them to make their first desertion; and the crowning touch to their benefit was that, in order to save the life of their mistress, they thought it was worth the price of seeming to have put her to death. Believe me, it is not the act — I will not say of a “slavish,” but — of a commonplace soul to purchase a noble deed at the cost of being thought a criminal!
When Vettius, the praetor of the Marsians, was being conducted to the Roman general, his slave snatched a sword from the very soldier who was dragging him along, and first slew his master. Then he said: “Now that I have given my master his freedom, the time has come for me to think also of myself,” and so with one blow he stabbed himself. Name to me anyone who has saved his master more gloriously.