Where slaves are concerned he [Augusto] was at least conscious of basic humanitarian principles. When he was at a dinner party given by Vedius Pollio, a slave accidentally broke a cup which the master of the house valued highly. Pollio ordered the slave to be thrown to the lampreys in the garden pool, which would have been a particularly horrible death, similar to but slower than, being eaten by piranhas. The slave appealed to Augustus, who asked to see the rest of the set of valuable cups. Deliberately he smashed every one of them. In one destructive act he manages to express both his disgust at Vedius Pollio's cruelty, and his disapproval of the unwarranted display of wealth and luxury, which ran counter to his sumptuary laws. Almost incidentally he saved the live of the slave, but of course no one has recorded what perhaps happened to the unfortunate slave on the morning after the dinner party; there may still have been one or two over-fed lampreys in Vedius' pool. What has gone down in history, and has lost nothing in retelling, is that Augustus thought it inhuman to value a cup more highly than a slave.
Augustus, de Pat Southern.
Routledge, London & NY: 1998.
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