Note 1254 — Chapter IV

Cæsar and Athenæus attribute this custom to the Gauls, and Valerius Maximus to the Keltiberians. Those men who attached themselves to the interests of any prince or famous personage, and who espoused all his quarrels, even devoting themselves to death on his account, are named by Athenæus σιλοδοῦροι, and by Cæsar soldurii. Speaking of 600 soldiers devoted in this manner to a Gaulish prince, named Adcantuannus, Cæsar (l. iii. c. 22) says, “Sibi mortem consciscant; neque adhuc hominum memoriâ repertus est quisquam, qui, eo interfecto cujus se amicitiæ devovisset, mori recusaret.” Plutarch tells us that Sertorius had in his suite many thousand Iberians devoted to him. The following epitaph of these men, who, after the death of Sertorius, sacrificed themselves, being unwilling to survive him, was extracted by Swinburne from the Annals of Catalonia.