suggested in its stead a patriotic appeal to the slave-owners.  But soon this fit of resolution in an assembly consisting in great part of African merchants passed off, and they agreed to capitulate.  Thereupon when Faustus Sulla, son of the regent, and Lucius Afranius arrived in Utica with a strong division of cavalry from the field of battle, Cato still made an attempt to hold the town through them; but he indignantly rejected their demand to let them first of all put to death the untrustworthy citizens of Utica en masse, and chose to let the last stronghold of the republicans fall into the hands of the monarch without resistance rather than to profane the last moments of the republic by such a massacre.  After he had—­ partly by his authority, partly by liberal largesses—­checked so far as he could the fury of the soldiery against the unfortunate Uticans; after he had with touching solicitude furnished to those who preferred not to trust themselves to Caesar’s mercy the means for flight, and to those who wished to remain the opportunity of capitulating under the most tolerable conditions, so far as his ability reached; and after having thoroughly satisfied himself that he could render to no one any farther aid, he held himself released from his command, retired to his bedchamber, and plunged his sword into his breast.

The Leaders of the Republicans Put to Death

Of the other fugitive leaders only a few escaped.  The cavalry that fled from Thapsus encountered the bands of Sittius, and were cut down or captured by them; their leaders Afranius and Faustus were delivered up to Caesar, and, when the latter did not order their immediate execution, they were slain in a tumult by his veterans.  The commander-in-chief Metellus Scipio with the fleet of the defeated party fell into the power of the cruisers of Sittius and, when they were about to lay hands on him, stabbed himself.  King Juba, not unprepared for such an issue, had in that case resolved to die in a way which seemed to him befitting a king, and had caused an enormous funeral pile to be prepared in the market-place of his city Zama, which was intended to consume along with his body all his treasures and the dead bodies of the whole citizens of Zama.  But the inhabitants of the town showed no desire to let themselves be employed by way of decoration for the funeral rites of the African Sardanapalus; and they closed the gates against the king when fleeing from the battle-field he appeared, accompanied by Marcus Petreius, before their city.  The king—­one of those natures that become savage amidst a life of dazzling and insolent enjoyment, and prepare for themselves even out of death an intoxicating feast—­ resorted with his companion to one of his country houses, caused a copious banquet to be served up, and at the close of the feast challenged Petreius to fight him to death in single combat.  It was the conqueror of Catilina that received his death at the hand of the king; the latter thereupon caused himself to be stabbed by one of his slaves.  The few men of eminence that escaped, such as Labienus and Sextus Pompeius, followed the elder brother of the latter to Spain and sought, like Sertorius formerly, a last refuge of robbers and pirates in the waters and the mountains of that still half-independent land.