Book 29
1.39
Simonides, however, ready to escape from life as from a cruel tyrant, and laughing at the sudden disasters of human destiny, stood unmoved amid the flames; imitating that celebrated philosopher Peregrinus, surnamed Proteus,According to Lucian, who wrote his biography, he was a Cynic; he was born at Parion on the Hellespont, and died in Olympiad 236 (A.D. 165). who, when he had determined to depart from life, at the quinquennial Olympic festival, in the sight of all Greece, mounted a funeral pyre which he himself had constructed and was consumed by the flames.
1.40
And after him, in the days that followed, a throng of men of almost all ranks, whom it would be difficult to enumerate by name, involved in the snares of calumny, wearied the arms of the executioners after being first crippled by rack, lead, and scourge. Some were punished without breathing-space or delay, while inquiry was being made whether they deserved punishment; everywhere the scene was like a slaughtering of cattle.
1.41
Then, innumerable writings and many heaps of volumes were hauled out from various houses and under the eyes of the judges were burned in heaps as being unlawful, to allay the indignation at the executions, although the greater number were treatises on the liberal arts and on jurisprudence.
