[367] He accordingly had the man executed more from
indignation against the assassin than in any hope of saving his life;
for he found that the man had been one of the murderers of Clodius
Macer,[368] and after staining his hand in the blood of a military
officer was now proposing to turn it against a civil governor. Piso
then reprimanded the Carthaginians in an edict which clearly showed
his anxiety, and refrained from performing even the routine of his
office, shutting himself up in his house, for fear that he might by
accident provide some pretext for further demonstrations.
When the news of the popular excitement and the centurion's 50
execution reached the ears of Festus, considerably exaggerated and
with the usual admixture of falsehood, he at once sent off a party of
horsemen to murder Piso. Riding at full speed, they reached the
governor's house in the twilight of early dawn and broke in with drawn
swords. As Festus had mainly chosen Carthaginian auxiliaries and Moors
to do the murder, most of them did not know Piso by sight. However,
near his bedroom they happened on a slave and asked him where Piso was
and what he looked like. In answer the slave told them a heroic lie
and said he was Piso, whereupon they immediately cut him down.
However, Piso himself was killed very soon after, for there was one
man among them who knew him, and that was Baebius Massa, one of the
imperial agents in Africa, who was already a danger to all the best
men in Rome.
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