in frantic despair at the news; but one of the freedmen informed her of
the place of his retreat, and advised her to assume the habit and
exhibit the desolation of widowhood, so as to confirm the report they
had disseminated. "Well did she play her part," says Plutarch, "in this
tragedy of woe." She visited her husband in his cave at night, and left
him at daybreak, but at last refused to leave him at all. At the end of
seven months, hearing talk of the clemency of Vespasian, she set out
for Rome taking her husband with her, disguised as a slave, with shaven
head and a dress that rendered him unrecognisable. But friends who were
in her confidence dissuaded her from prosecuting the journey. The
imperial clemency was not a quality to be calculated upon with
confidence. They accordingly returned to their subterranean abode.
There they lived for nine years, during which, "as a lioness in her
den," says Plutarch, "Eponia gave birth to two young whelps, and
suckled them at her own breast." At length they were discovered, and
Sabinus and his wife were brought before Vespasian.

"Caesar," said Eponia, showing him her children, "I conceived and
suckled them in a tomb, that there might be more of us to entreat thy
mercy." But the Emperor was not disposed to be clement to one who
pretended to inherit the sacred Julian blood, and he ordered Sabinus to
be led to the block. Eponia asked that she might die with her husband,
saying: "Caesar, do me this grace, for I have lived more happily
underground and in darkness than thou hast done in the splendour of thy
palace."

Vespasian fulfilled her desire by sending her also to execution; and
Plutarch, their contemporary, expressed the general feeling in Rome,
when he adds: "In all the long reign of this Emperor there was no deed
done so cruel, and so piteous to look upon; and he was afterwards