1Larcius Macedo, a man of praetorian rank, has suffered at the hands of his slaves an atrocious thing, worthy of more than a letter, though he was in other respects a proud and cruel master, and one who remembered too little — or rather too much — that his father had been a slave. 2He was bathing at his villa at Formiae. 2Suddenly his slaves surround him. 2One goes for his throat, another strikes his face, another his chest and belly, and even — shameful to say — batters his private parts; 2and when they thought him lifeless, they throw him on to the scalding floor, to find out whether he was alive.
2He, whether because he felt nothing or because he pretended not to feel, lying motionless and stretched out, made their belief that he was dead complete. 3Only then is he carried out, as if overcome by the heat; 3the more faithful slaves take him up, and his concubines come running with wailing and shrieks. 3So, roused by their voices and revived by the coolness of the place, he opens his eyes, moves his body, and shows — by now it was safe — that he is alive. 4The slaves scatter in flight; 4a great part of them have been caught, the rest are being hunted for. 4He himself, kept alive with difficulty for a few days, died not without the consolation of revenge, avenged while still alive as murdered men usually are.
5You see to how many dangers, how many insults, how many mockeries we are exposed; 5nor is there any reason why anyone should feel safe because he is lenient and gentle; 5for masters are murdered not on a judgement of their character but out of sheer wickedness. 6But enough of this. 6What else is new? 6What? 6Nothing, otherwise I would add it; 6for there is still paper left, and the holiday allows more to be woven in. 6I will add something about the same Macedo that opportunely comes to mind. 6When he was bathing in a public bath at Rome, a remarkable and even, as the outcome showed, ominous thing happened.
7A Roman knight, lightly touched with the hand by his slave to make him give way, turned round and struck, not the slave who had touched him, but Macedo himself, so hard with the flat of his hand that he almost fell down. 8Thus the bath was for him, as if by certain stages, first the scene of insult, then of death. 8Farewell.