he, not finding an opportunity of meeting him, put it into the hands of the very slave in question, whom he believed to be the most faithful to his master of any; and added, that it came from Pisistratus respecting a matter of the utmost consequence to Zeuxippus.  Struck by consciousness of guilt, the slave after promising to deliver the letter, immediately opened it; and, on reading the contents, fled in a fright to Thebes and laid the information before the magistrate.  Zeuxippus, alarmed by the flight of his slave, withdrew to Athens, where he thought he might live in exile with greater safety.  Pisistratus, after being examined several times by torture, was put to death.

29.  This murder exasperated the Thebans, and all the Boeotians, to the most rancorous animosity against the Romans, for they considered that Zeuxippus, one of the first men of the nation, had not been party to such a crime without the instigation of the Roman general.  To recommence a war, they had neither strength nor a leader; but they had recourse to private massacres, as being next to war, and cut off many of the soldiers, some as they came to lodge in their houses, others as they wandered about their winter quarters, or were on leave of absence for various purposes.  Some were killed on the roads by parties lying in wait in lurking-places; others were seduced and carried away to inns, which were left uninhabited, and there put to death.  At last they committed these crimes, not merely out of hatred, but likewise from a desire of booty; for the soldiers on furlough generally carried money in their purses for the purpose of trading.  At first a few at a time, afterwards greater numbers used to be missed, until all Boeotia became notorious for those practices, and a soldier went beyond the bounds of the camp with more timidity than into an enemy’s country.  Quinctius then sent deputies round the states, to make inquiry concerning the murders committed.  The greatest number of murders were found to have been committed about the lake called Copais; there the bodies were dug out of the mud, and drawn up out of the marsh, having had earthen jars or stones tied to them, so as to be dragged to the bottom by the weight.  Many deeds of this sort were discovered to have been perpetrated at Acrphia and Coronea.  Quinctius at first insisted that the persons guilty should be given up to him, and that, for five hundred soldiers, (for so many had been cut off,) the Botians should pay five hundred talents.[1] Neither of these requisitions being complied with, and the states only making verbal apologies, declaring, that none of those acts had been authorized by the public; Quinctius first sent ambassadors to Athens and Achaia, to satisfy the allies, that the war which he was about to make on the Botians was conformable to justice and piety; and then, ordering Publius Claudius to march with one-half of the troops to Acrphia, he himself, with the remainder, invested Coronea; and these two bodies’ marching by different