_ ii. 5, 31).]
[Footnote 168: [Greek: te braduteti tes lalias.] The meaning of these
words may be doubtful; but what I have given is perhaps consistent
with the Greek and with the circumstances. There was some hesitation
about beginning the attack, and the flagging of the conversation was a
natural consequence.
Sertorius was murdered B.C. 72, in the consulship of L. Gellius
Publicola and Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus, in the eighth year of
his command in Spain. (Livius, _Epitom._ 96.) Accordingly this places
the commencement of his command in B.C. 80; but he went to Spain in
B.C. 82, or at the end of B.C. 83. See Notes on c. 6. Appian (_Civil
Wars_, i. 114) states that when the will of Sertorius was opened it
was discovered that he had placed Perperna among his heredes, a
circumstance which throws doubt on the assertion of Appian that
Perperna was afraid that Sertorius intended to take his life. Appian
adds that when this was known, it created great enmity against
Perperna among his followers.
Plutarch's estimate of Sertorius may be a favourable one; yet he does
not omit to mention that act of his life which was most blamable, the
massacre of the youths at Osca. From the slight indications in
Frontinus, who found some material for his work on Military Stratagems
in the campaigns of Sertorius, and from other passages, we may collect
that, however mild the temper of Sertorius was, circumstances must
often have compelled him to acts of severity and even cruelty.
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