⚫️ IRONY

“When the proscription lists were fixed up in the forum, a multitude of people promptly came flocking in to read them. Most of them pitied those that were thus condemned to die. But one amongst them, a most malicious and insolent character, gloried over the miserable fate of the afflicted, and yelled out most spiteful remarks against them. Some incensed deity soon repaid him with a just revenge; for he happened to read his own name as one proscribed at the bottom of the list. He covered his head, and tried to run away through the thickest of the crowd; for he hoped in this way to escape detection and reach safety. But someone who stood nearby recognised him, and exposed him as one of the condemned; he was instantly surrounded and seized, and then put to death, to the great joy of all that heard it.”

Diodorus Siculus