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Beguiled by these promises they left their own habitations and came together at the place where Galba directed. He divided them into three parts, and showing to each division a certain plain, he commanded them to remain in this open country until he should assign them their places. Then he came to the first division and told them as friends to lay down their arms. When they had done so he surrounded them with a ditch and sent in soldiers with swords who slew them all, they, meanwhile, crying aloud and invoking the names and faith of the gods. In like manner he hastened to the second and third divisions and destroyed them while they were still ignorant of the fate of the first. Thus he avenged treachery with treachery in a manner unworthy of a Roman, but imitating barbarians. A few escaped, among them Viriathus, who not long afterward became the leader of the Lusitanians and killed many Romans and performed the greatest exploits, which I shall relate hereafter. Galba, being even more greedy than Lucullus, distributed a little of the plunder to the army and a little to his friends and kept the rest himself, although he was already one of the richest of the Romans. Not even in time of peace, they say, did he abstain from lying and perjury in order to get gain. Although generally hated, and called to account for his rascalities, he escaped punishment by means of his wealth.
Appian. The Foreign Wars. Horace White. New York. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1899.
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