They were over at last, and the friends hastened after them, far more anxious to leave the bridge than they had been an instant before to set foot upon it.

On they pressed, until as if by magic there stood across their path the twelve lictors of one of the consuls, with upraised fasces.

Behind the lictors was a half-century of soldiers in full armour led by their _optio_.[149] [149] Adjutant, subordinate to a centurion.
"Sirs," announced the head lictor, "I am commanded by the consul, Lucius Lentulus Crus, to put you all under arrest for treason against the Republic.

Spare yourselves the indignity of personal violence, by offering no resistance." To resist would indeed have been suicide.

The friends had worn their short swords under their cloaks, but counting Agias they were only six, and the lictors were twelve, to say nothing of the soldiers, of whom there were thirty or more.
The ground seemed swaying before Drusus's eyes; in his ears was a buzzing; his thoughts came to him, thick, confused, yet through them all ran the vision of Cornelia, and the conviction that he was never to see her again.