about nine in the morning
Death she had not only despised , but implored , even when the point of their daggers were razing the skin of her soft neck ; and so terribly were they embarrassed and exasperated by her persistence , that it is probable they would have taken her life , had it not been for fear of Catiline , whose orders were express to bring her to his camp alive and in honor . At length Aulus Fulvius had threatened in the plainest language outrages so enormous , that the poor girl 's spirit sank , and that she took an oath , in order to avoid immediate indignities , and those the most atrocious , to remain silent during the next six hours . Had she been able to possess herself of any weapon , she would undoubtedly have destroyed herself , as the only means she could imagine of escaping what to her was worse than loss of life , the loss of honor ; and it was chiefly in the hope of effecting this ere nightfall , that she took the oath prescribed to her , in terms of such tremendous sanctity , that no Roman would dream of breaking it , on any pretext of compulsion . Liberated by their success in this atrocious scheme , from that apprehension , they now pushed forward rapidly , and reached the station at Baccanæ , in a wooded gorge between a range of low hills , and a clear lake , at about nine in the morning , of our time , or the third hour by Roman computation . Here they obtained a fresh horse for the vehicle which carried Julia , and tarrying so long only as to swallow a draught of wine , they pressed onward through a steep defile along which the road wound among wooded crags toward Sutrium . At this place , which was a city of some note , they were joined by forty or fifty partisans , well armed and mounted on good horses , all veteran soldiers who had been settled on the confiscated estates of his enemies by the great usurper Sylla , and thenceforth feeling themselves strong enough to overawe any opposition they might meet on the way , they journeyed at a slower rate in perfect confidence of success , numbering now not less than sixty well-equipped Cavaliers . Before noon , they were thirty miles distant from Rome , and had reached the bottom of a long and almost precipitous ascent where the road , scorning any divergence to the right or left , scaled the abrupt heights of a craggy hill , known at the present day as the Monte Soriano , the ancient name of which has not descended to these times .