Chapter IV

Lucius Ahenobarbus Airs His Grievance

I

The pomp and gluttony of Roman banquets have been too often described to need repetition here; neither would we be edified by learning all the orgies that Marcus Laeca (an old Catilinian conspirator) and his eight guests indulged in that night: only after the dinner had been cleared, and before the Gadesian[57] dancing girls were called in, the dice began to rattle, and speedily all were engrossed in drink and play.

[57] From Cadiz, Spain.

Lucius Ahenobarbus soon lost so heavily that he was cursing every god that presided over the noble game.

"I am ruined next Ides," he groaned. "Phormio the broker has only continued my loan at four per cent a month. All my villas and furniture are mortgaged, and will be sold at auction. _Mehercle_, destruction stares me in the face!"

"Well, well, my dear fellow," said Pratinas, who, having won the stakes, was in a mood to be sympathetic, "we must really see what can be done to remedy matters."

"I can see nothing!" was his answer.

"Won't your father come to the rescue?" put in Gabinius, between deep pulls on a beaker.

"My father!" snapped Ahenobarbus. "Never a sesterce will I get out of him! He's as good as turned me adrift, and Cato my uncle is always giving him bad reports of me, like the hypocritical Stoic that Cato is."

"By the bye," began Gabinius again, putting down the wine-cup, "you hinted to-day that you had been cheated out of a fortune, after a manner. Something about that Drusus of Praeneste, if I recollect. What's the story?"

Lucius settled down on his elbow, readjusted the cushions on the banqueting couch, and then began, interrupted by many a hiccough because of his potations.

"It is quite a story, but I won't bore you with details. It has quite as much to do with Cornelia, Lentulus Crus's pretty niece, as with Drusus himself. Here it is in short. Sextus Drusus and Caius Lentulus were such good friends that, as you know, they betrothed their son and daughter when the latter were mere children. To make the compact doubly strong, Sextus Drusus inserted in his will a clause like this: 'Let my son Quintus enjoy the use of my estate and its income, until he become twenty-five and cease to be under the care of Flaccus his _tutor_.[58] If he die before that time, let his property go to Cornelia, the daughter of Caius Lentulus, except;' and here Sextus left a small legacy for his own young daughter, Livia. You see Drusus can make no will until he is five-and-twenty. But then comes another provision. 'If Cornelia shall marry any person save my son, my son shall at once be free to dispose of my estates.' So Cornelia is laid under a sort of obligation also to marry Quintus. The whole aim of the will is to make it very hard for the young people to fail to wed as their fathers wished."

[58] Commercial adviser required for young men under five-and-twenty.

"True," said Gabinius; "but how such an arrangement can affect you and your affairs, I really cannot understand."

"That is so," continued Ahenobarbus, "but here is the other side of the matter. Caius Lentulus was a firm friend of Sextus Drusus; he also was very close and dear to my father. Caius desired that Cornelia wed young Drusus, and so enjoined her in his will; but out of compliment to my father, put in a clause which was something like this: 'If Quintus Drusus die before he marry Cornelia, or refuse to marry Cornelia at the proper time, then let Cornelia and all her property be given to Lucius, the second son of my dearly loved friend, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus,' Now I think you will begin to see why Quintus Drusus's affairs interest me a little. If he refuse to marry Cornelia before he be five-and-twenty, she falls to me. But I understand that Lentulus, her uncle, is badly in debt, and her dowry won't be much. But if Drusus is not married to her, and die before he is twenty-five, _his property is hers and she is mine._ Do you understand why I have a little grudge against him?"

"For what?" cried Laeca, with breathless interest.

"For living!" sighed Ahenobarbus, hopelessly.

The handsome face of Pratinas was a study. His nostrils dilated; his lips quivered; his eyes were bright and keen with what evidently passed in his mind for a great discovery.

"Eureka!" cried the Greek, clapping his hands. "My dear Lucius, let me congratulate you! You are saved!"

"What?" exclaimed the young man, starting up.

"You are saved!" repeated Pratinas, all animation. "Drusus's sesterces shall be yours! Every one of them!"

Lucius Ahenobarbus was a debauchee, a mere creature of pleasure, without principle or character; but even he had a revulsion of spirit at the hardly masked proposal of the enthusiastic Greek. He flushed in spite of the wine, then turned pale, then stammered, "Don't mention such a thing, Pratinas. I was never Drusus's enemy. I dare not dream of such a move. The Gods forefend!"

"The Gods?" repeated Pratinas, with a cynical intonation. "Do you believe there are any?"

"Do you?" retorted Lucius, feeling all the time that a deadly temptation had hold of him, which he could by no means resist.

"Why?" said the Greek. "Your Latin Ennius states my view, in some of your rather rough and blundering native tetrameters. He says:--

"'There's a race of gods in heaven; so I've said and still will say. But I deem that we poor mortals do not come beneath their sway. Otherwise the good would triumph, whereas evil reigns to-day.'"

"And you advise?" said Ahenobarbus, leaning forward with pent-up excitement.

"I advise?" replied Pratinas; "I am only a poor ignorant Hellene, and who am I, to give advice to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, a most noble member of the most noble of nations!"

If Pratinas had said: "My dear Lucius, you are a thick-headed, old-fashioned, superstitious Roman, whom I, in my superior wisdom, utterly despise," he would have produced about the same effect upon young Ahenobarbus.

But Lucius still fluttered vainly,--a very weak conscience whispering that Drusus had never done him any harm; that murder was a dangerous game, and that although his past life had been bad enough, he had never made any one--unless it were a luckless slave or two--the victim of bloodthirsty passion or rascality.

"Don't propose it," he groaned. "I don't dare to think of such a thing! What disgrace and trouble, if it should all come out!"

"Come, come, Ahenobarbus," thrust in Marcus Laeca, who had been educated in Catilina's school for polite villains and cut-throats. "Pratinas is only proposing what, if you were a man of spirit, would have been done long ago. You can't complain of Fortune, when she's put a handsome estate in your hands for the asking."

"My admirable fellow," said Pratinas, benevolently, "I highly applaud your scruples. But, permit me to say it, I must ask you to defer to me as being a philosopher. Let us look at the matter in a rational way. We have gotten over any bogies which our ancestors had about Hades, or the punishments of the wicked. In fact, what we know--as good Epicureans--is that, as Democritus of Abdera[59] early taught, this world of ours is composed of a vast number of infinitely small and indivisible atoms, which have by some strange hap come to take the forms we see in the world of life and matter. Now the soul of man is also of atoms, only they are finer and more subtile. At death these atoms are dissolved, and so far as that man is concerned, all is over with him. The atoms may recombine, or join with others, but never form anew that same man. Hence we may fairly conclude that this life is everything and death ends all. Do you follow, and see to what I am leading?"

[59] Born about 470 B.C.

"I think so," said the wretched Lucius, feeling himself like a bird caught in a snare, yet not exactly grasping the direct bearing of all this learned exposition.

"My application is this," went on Pratinas, glibly. "Life is all--all either for pleasure or pain. Therefore every man has a right to extract all the sweetness he can out of it. But suppose a man deliberately makes himself gloomy, extracts no joy from life; lets himself be overborne by care and sorrow,--is not such a man better dead than living? Is not a dreamless sleep preferable to misery or even cold asceticism? And how much more does this all apply when we see a man who makes himself unhappy, preventing by his very act of existence the happiness of another more equably tempered mortal! Now I believe this is the present case. Drusus, I understand, is leading a spare, joyless, workaday sort of existence, which is, or by every human law should be, to him a burden. So long as he lives, he prevents you from enjoying the means of acquiring pleasure. Now I have Socrates of imperishable memory on my side, when I assert that death under any circumstances is either no loss or a very great gain. Considering then the facts of the case in its philosophic and rational bearings, I may say this: Not merely would it be no wrong to remove Drusus from a world in which he is evidently out of place, but I even conceive such an act to rise to the rank of a truly meritorious deed."

Lucius Ahenobarbus was conquered. He could not resist the inexorable logic of this train of reasoning, all the premises of which he fully accepted. Perhaps, we should add, he was not very unwilling to have his wine-befuddled intellect satisfied, and his conscience stilled. He turned down a huge beaker of liquor, and coughed forth:--

"Right as usual, Pratinas! By all the gods, but I believe you can save me!"

"Yes; as soon as Drusus is dead," insinuated the Greek who was already computing his bill for brokerage in this little affair, "you can raise plenty of loans, on the strength of your coming marriage with Cornelia."

"But how will you manage it?" put in the alert Gabinius. "There mustn't be any clumsy bungling."

"Rest assured," said Pratinas, with a grave dignity, perhaps the result of his drinking, "that in my affairs I leave no room for bungling."

"And your plan is--" asked Lucius.

"Till to-morrow, friend," said the Greek; "meet me at the Temple of Saturn, just before dusk. Then I'll be ready."

II

Lucius Ahenobarbus's servants escorted their tipsy master home to his lodgings in a fashionable apartment house on the Esquiline. When he awoke, it was late the next day, and head and wits were both sadly the worse for the recent entertainment. Finally a bath and a luncheon cleared his brain, and he realized his position. He was on the brink of concocting a deliberate murder. Drusus had never wronged him; the crime would be unprovoked; avarice would be its only justification. Ahenobarbus had done many things which a far laxer code of ethics than that of to-day would frown upon; but, as said, he had never committed murder--at least had only had crucified those luckless slaves, who did not count. He roused with a start, as from a dream. What if Pratinas were wrong? What if there were really gods, and furies, and punishments for the wicked after death? And then came the other side of the shield: a great fortune his; all his debts paid off; unlimited chances for self-enjoyment; last, but not least, Cornelia his. She had slighted him, and turned her back upon all his advances; and now what perfect revenge! Lucius was more in love with Cornelia than he admitted even to himself. He would even give up Clyte, if he could possess her. And so the mental battle went on all day; and the prick of conscience, the fears of superstition, and the lingerings of religion ever grew fainter. Near nightfall he was at his post, at the Temple of Saturn. Pratinas was awaiting him. The Greek had only a few words of greeting, and the curt injunction:--"Draw your cloak up to shield your face, and follow me." Then they passed out from the Forum, forced their way through the crowded streets, and soon were through the _Porta Ratumena,_ outside the walls, and struck out across the Campus Martius, upon the Via Flaminia. It was rapidly darkening. The houses grew fewer and fewer. At a little distance the dim structures of the Portico and Theatre of Pompeius could be seen, looming up to an exaggerated size in the evening haze. A grey fog was drifting up from the Tiber, and out of a rift in a heavy cloud-bank a beam of the imprisoned moon was struggling. Along the road were peasants with their carts and asses hastening home. Over on the Pincian Mount the dark green masses of the splendid gardens of Pompeius and of Lucullus were just visible. The air was filled with the croak of frogs and the chirp of crickets, and from the river came the creak of the sculls and paddles of a cumbrous barge that was working its way down the Tiber.

Ahenobarbus felt awed and uncomfortable. Pratinas, with his mantle wrapped tightly around his head, continued at a rapid pace. Lucius had left his attendants at home, and now began to recall gruesome tales of highwaymen and bandits frequenting this region after dark. His fears were not allayed by noticing that underneath his himation Pratinas occasionally let the hilt of a short sword peep forth. Still the Greek kept on, never turning to glance at a filthy, half-clad beggar, who whined after them for an alms, and who did not so much as throw a kiss after the young Roman when the latter tossed forth a denarius,[60] but snatched up the coin, muttered at its being no more, and vanished into the gathering gloom.

[60] Four sesterces, 16 cents.

"Where are you leading me?" asked Ahenobarbus, a second time, after all his efforts to communicate with the usually fluent Greek met with only monosyllables.

"To the _lanista_[61] Dumnorix," replied Pratinas, quickening an already rapid pace.

[61] Keeper of a school of gladiators.

"And his barracks are--?"

"By the river, near the Mulvian bridge."

At length a pile of low square buildings was barely visible in the haze. It was close to the Tiber, and the rush of the water against the piling of the bridge was distinctly audible. As the two drew near to a closed gateway, a number of mongrel dogs began to snap and bark around them. From within the building came the roar of coarse hilarity and coarser jests. As Pratinas approached the solidly barred doorway, a grating was pushed aside and a rude voice demanded:--

"Your business? What are you doing here?"

"Is Dumnorix sober?" replied Pratinas, nothing daunted. "If so, tell him to come and speak with me. I have something for his advantage."

Either Pratinas was well known at the gladiators' school, or something in his speech procured favour. There was a rattling of chains and bolts, and the door swung open. A man of unusual height and ponderous proportions appeared in the opening. That was all which could be seen in the semi-darkness.

"You are Pratinas?" he asked, speaking Latin with a northern accent. The Hellene nodded, and replied softly: "Yes. No noise. Tell Dumnorix to come quietly."

The two stepped in on to the flags of a courtyard, and the doorkeeper, after rebolting, vanished into the building. Ahenobarbus could only see that he was standing in a large stone-paved court, perhaps one hundred and forty feet wide and considerably longer. A colonnade of low whitewashed pillars ran all about: and behind them stretched rows of small rooms and a few larger apartments. There were _tyros_ practising with wooden swords in one of the rooms, whence a light streamed, and a knot of older gladiators was urging them on, mocking, praising, and criticising their efforts. Now and then a burly gladiator would stroll across the court; but the young noble and his escort remained hidden in shadow.

Presently a door opened at the other end of the courtyard, and some one with a lantern began to come toward the entrance. Long before the stranger was near, Ahenobarbus thought he was rising like a giant out of the darkness; and when at last Dumnorix--for it was he--was close at hand, both Roman and Greek seemed veritable dwarfs beside him.

Dumnorix--so far as he could be seen in the lantern light--was a splendid specimen of a northern giant. He was at least six feet five inches in height, and broad proportionately. His fair straight hair tumbled in disorder over his shoulders, and his prodigiously long mustaches seemed, to the awed Ahenobarbus, almost to curl down to his neck. His breath came in hot pants like a winded horse, and when he spoke, it was in short Latin monosyllables, interlarded with outlandish Gallic oaths. He wore cloth trousers with bright stripes of red and orange; a short-sleeved cloak of dark stuff, falling down to the thigh; and over the cloak, covering back and shoulders, another sleeveless mantle, clasped under the chin with a huge golden buckle. At his right thigh hung, from a silver set girdle, by weighty bronze chains, a heavy sabre, of which the steel scabbard banged noisily as its owner advanced.

"Holla! Pratinas," cried the Gaul, as he came close. "By the holy oak! but I'm glad to see you! Come to my room. Have a flagon of our good northern mead."

"Hist," said the Greek, cautiously. "Not so boisterous. Better stay here in the dark. I can't tell who of your men may hear us."

"As you say," said Dumnorix, setting down the light at a little distance and coming closer.

"You remember that little affair of last year," said Pratinas, continuing;--"how you helped me get rid of a witness in a very troublesome law case?"

"Ha! ha!" chuckled the giant, "I wish I had the sesterces I won then, in my coffer now."

"Well," replied Pratinas, "I don't need to tell you what I and my noble friend here--Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus--have come for. A little more business along the same line. Are you our man?"

"I should say so," answered Dumnorix, with a grin worthy of a baboon. "Only make it worth my while."

"Now," said Pratinas, sinking his voice still lower, "this affair of ours will pay you well; but it is more delicate than the other. A blunder will spoil it all. You must do your best; and we will do the fair thing by you."

"Go on," said the Gaul, folding his huge paws on his breast.

"Have you ever been in Praeneste?" questioned Pratinas.

"I matched two _mirmillones_[62] of mine there against two _threces_[63] of another lanista, and my dogs won the prize; but I can't say that I am acquainted with the place," answered the other.

[62] Gladiators equipped as Gaulish warriors.

[63] Buckler men.

"You should find out, then," said Pratinas, "for here lies your work." And then he proceeded, with occasional prompting from the better-informed Ahenobarbus, to point out the location of Drusus's estate, and the character and habits of the man whom Dumnorix was cheerfully proposing to put out of the way. Dumnorix assented and bade him go on, with hoarse grunts; and when the Greek had concluded, growled out in his barbarous Latin:--

"But why all this pother? Why not let me send a knave or two and knock the fellow some dark night in the head? It will save us both time and trouble."

"My excellent master of the gladiators," said Pratinas, as smoothly as ever, "you must not take it ill, if I tell you that to have a taking off such as you propose would be a very bad thing both for you and the most noble Ahenobarbus. This Drusus is not a helpless wight, without friends, waiting to become the fair prey of any dagger man.[64] He has friends, I have learned, who, if he were to be disposed of in such a rude and bungling manner, would not fail to probe deeply into the whole thing. Flaccus the great banker, notably, would spare no pains to bring the responsibility of the matter home, not merely to the poor wretch who struck the blow, but the persons who placed the weapon in his hands. All of which would be very awkward for Ahenobarbus. No, your rough-and-ready plan won't in the least work."

[64] _Sicarius_.

"Well," replied Dumnorix, testily, "I'm a man of shallow wits and hard blows. If I had been of keener mind, the gods know, I would have been a free chief among the Nervii, instead of making sport for these straw-limbed Romans. If what I propose won't answer, what can be done?"

"A great deal," said Pratinas, who knew perfectly how to cringe low, yet preserve his ascendency; "first of all, it is very necessary that the murderers of the amiable Drusus should receive a meet reward for their crime--that justice should be speedy and severe."

"Man!" cried Dumnorix, griping the Greek's arm in his tremendous clutch. "What are you asking?"

"By Zeus!" burst out Pratinas, rubbing his crushed member. "What a grip is yours! Don't be alarmed. Surely you would be as willing to have one or two of your newest _tiros_ hung on a cross, as stabbed on the arena--especially when it will pay a great deal better?"

"I don't follow you," said the Gaul, though a little reassured.

"Simply this," said Pratinas, who evidently felt that he was coming to the revealing of an especially brilliant piece of _finesse_. "My general proposal is this. Let you and your company march through Praeneste,--of course carefully timing your march so as to find the innocent and unfortunate Drusus at his farm. You will have a very disorderly band of gladiators, and they begin to attack Drusus's orchard, and maltreat his slaves. You try to stop them,--without avail. Finally, in a most unfortunate and outrageous outbreak they slay the master of the house. The tumult is quelled. The heirs proceed against you. You can only hand over the murderers for crucifixion, and offer to pay any money damages that may be imposed. A heavy fine is laid upon you, as being responsible for the killing of Drusus by your slaves. You pay the damages. Ahenobarbus marries Cornelia and enters upon the estate. The world says that all that can be done to atone for Drusus's murder has been done. All of the guilty are punished. The dead cannot be recalled. The matter is at an end. Ahenobarbus has what he wished for; you have all the money you paid in damages quietly refunded; also the cost of the poor rascals crucified, and a fair sum over and above for your trouble."

"By the god Belew!"[65] cried the enthusiastic Dumnorix. "What a clever plan! How the world will be cheated! Ha! ha! How sharp you little Greeks must be. Only I must have fair return for my work, and an oath that the business shall never be coming to the point of giving my eyes to the crows. I can't risk my life in anything but a square fight."

[65] The Gallic sun-god.

"Well," said Pratinas, after a few words with his companion, "how will this proposition suit you? All expenses, before and after the affair itself, of course refunded; one hundred thousand sesterces clear gain for doing the deed, twenty-five thousand sesterces for every poor fellow we have to nail up to satisfy the law, and you to be guaranteed against any evil consequence. Is this sufficient?"

"I think so," growled Dumnorix, in his mustaches, "but I must have the oath."

"The oath?" said Pratinas, "oh, certainly!" and the Greek raised his hands toward heaven, and muttered some words to the effect that "if he and his friend did not fulfil their oath, let Zeus, the regarder of oaths, destroy them," etc., etc.--an imprecation which certainly, so far as words went, was strong enough to bind the most graceless. Then he proceeded to arrange with Dumnorix how the latter should wait until it was known Drusus had gone back to Praeneste, and was likely to stay there for some time; as to how many gladiators the lanista was to have ready. Dumnorix complained that the rather recent law against keeping gladiators at Rome prevented him from assembling in his school any considerable number. But out of his heterogeneous collection of Gauls, Germans, Spaniards, Greeks, and Asiatics he would find enough who could be used for the purpose without letting them know the full intent with which they were launched against Drusus. At all events, if their testimony was taken, it would have to be as slaves on the rack; and if they accused their master of instigating them to riot, it was what any person would expect of such degraded and lying wretches. So, after promising to come again with final word and some bags of earnest-money, Pratinas parted with the lanista, and he and Lucius Ahenobarbus found themselves again in the now entirely darkened Campus Martius. Lucius again feared brigands, but they fell in with no unpleasant nocturnal wayfarers, and reached the city without incident. Ahenobarbus seemed to himself to be treading on air--Cornelia, villas, Drusus's money--these were dancing in his head in a delightful confusion. He had abandoned himself completely to the sway of Pratinas; the Greek was omniscient, was invincible, was a greater than Odysseus. Ahenobarbus hardly dared to think for himself as to the plan which his friend had arranged for him. One observation, however, he made before they parted.

"You swore that Dumnorix should get into no trouble. May it not prove expensive to keep him out of difficulty?"

"My dear Lucius," replied Pratinas, "in cases of that kind there is a line from the Hippolytus of the immortal tragedian Euripides, which indicates the correct attitude for a philosopher and a man of discretion to assume. It runs thus,--

"'My tongue an oath took, but my mind's unsworn.'

Not an inelegant sentiment, as you must see."

III

We left the excellent man of learning, Pisander, in no happy frame of mind, after Agias had been dragged away, presumably to speedy doom. And indeed for many days the shadow of Valeria's crime, for it was nothing else, plunged him in deep melancholy. Pisander was not a fool, only amongst his many good qualities he did not possess that of being able to make a success in life. He had been tutor to a young Asiatic prince, and had lost his position by a local revolution; then he had drifted to Alexandria, and finally Rome, where he had struggled first to teach philosophy, and found no pupils to listen to his lectures; then to conduct an elementary school, but his scholars' parents were backward in paying even the modest fees he charged. Finally, in sheer despair, to keep from starving, he accepted the position as Valeria's "house-philosopher."

His condition was infinitely unsatisfactory for a variety of reasons. The good lady wished him to be at her elbow, ready to read from the philosophers or have on hand a talk on ethics or metaphysics to deliver extempore. Besides, though not a slave or freedman, he fared in the household much worse sometimes than they. A slave stole the dainties, and drained a beaker of costly wine on the sly. Pisander, like Thales, who was so intent looking at the stars that he fell into a well, "was so eager to know what was going on in heaven that he could not see what was before his feet."[66] And consequently the poor pedant dined on the remnants left after his employer and her husband had cleared the board; and had rancid oil and sour wine given him, when they enjoyed the best. The slaves had snubbed him and made fun of him; the freedmen regarded him with absolute disdain; Valeria's regular visitors treated him as a nonentity. Besides, all his standards of ethical righteousness were outraged by the round of life which he was compelled daily to witness. The worthy man would long before have ceased from a vassalage so disgraceful, had he possessed any other means of support. Once he meditated suicide, but was scared out of it by the thought that his bones would moulder in those huge pits on the Esquiline--far from friend or native land--where artisans, slaves, and cattle, creatures alike without means of decent burial, were left under circumstances unspeakably revolting to moulder away to dust.

[66] See Plato's "Theaetetus," 174.

The day of Agias's misfortune, Pisander sat in his corner of the boudoir, after Valeria had left it, in a very unphilosophical rage, gnawing his beard and cursing inwardly his mistress, Pratinas, and the world in general.

Arsinoe with a pale, strained face was moving about, replacing the bottles of cosmetics and perfumery in cabinets and caskets. Pisander had been kind to Arsinoe, and had taught her to read; and there was a fairly firm friendship between the slave and the luckless man, who felt himself degraded by an equal bondage.

"Poor Agias," muttered Pisander.

"Poor Agias," repeated Arsinoe, mournfully; then in some scorn, "Come, Master Pisander, now is the time to console yourself with your philosophy. Call out everything,--your Zeno, or Parmenides, or Heraclitus, or others of the thousand nobodies I've heard you praise to Valeria,--and make thereby my heart a jot the less sore, or Agias's death the less bitter! Don't sit there and snap at your beard, if your philosophy is good for anything! People used to pray to the gods in trouble, but you philosophers turn the gods into mists or thin air. You are a man! You are free! Do something! Say something!"

"But what can I do?" groaned Pisander, bursting into tears, and wishing for the instant Epicureans, Stoics, Eclectics, Peripatetics, and every other school of learning in the nethermost Hades.

"_Phui!_ Fudge!" cried Arsinoe. "What is life made for then, if a man who has spent all his days studying it is as good as helpless! Look at me! Have I not hands, feet, a head, and wits? Am I not as well informed and naturally capable as three fine ladies out of every four? Would I not look as handsome as they, if I had a chance to wear their dresses and jewels? Have I any blemish, any defect, that makes me cease to be a woman, and become a thing? Bah, master _Pisander!_ I am only a slave, but I will talk. Why does my blood boil at the fate of Agias, if it was not meant that it should heat up for some end? And yet I am as much a piece of property of that woman whom I hate, as this chair or casket. I have a right to no hope, no ambition, no desire, no reward. I can only aspire to live without brutal treatment. That would be a sort of Elysium. If I was brave enough, I would kill myself, and go to sleep and forget it all. But I am weak and cowardly, and so--here I am."

Pisander only groaned and went away to his room to turn over his Aristotle, and wonder why nothing in the "Nicomachean Ethics" or any other learned treatise contained the least word that made him contented over the fate of Agias or his own unhappy situation. Arsinoe and Semiramis, when he went from them, cried, and cried again, in pity and helpless grief at their whole situation. And so a considerable number of days passed. Calatinus could have given joy to the hearts of several in his household if he had simply remembered that Agias had not been scourged to death, but sold. But Calatinus feared, now that he was well out of the matter, to stir up an angry scene with his wife, by hinting that Agias had not been punished according to her orders. Alfidius, too, and the other slaves with him, imagined that his mistress would blame them if they admitted that Agias was alive. So the household gathered, by the silence of all concerned, that the bright Greek boy had long since passed beyond power of human torment. Pisander recovered part of his equanimity, and Arsinoe and Semiramis began to see life a shade less darkened.

Pratinas occasionally repeated his morning calls upon Valeria. He seemed much engrossed with business, but was always the same suave, elegant, accomplished personage that had endeared him to that lady's heart. One morning he came in, in unusually good spirits. "Congratulate me," he exclaimed, after saluting Valeria; "I have disposed of a very delicate piece of work, and my mind can take a little rest. At least I have roughly chiselled out the matter, as a sculptor would say, and can now wait a bit before finishing. Ah! what elegant study is this which is engrossing your ladyship this morning?"

"Pisander is reading from the works of Gorgias of Leontini," said Valeria, languidly.

"To be sure," went on Pratinas; "I have always had the greatest respect for the three nihilistic propositions of that philosopher. To read him one is half convinced of the affirmation that nothing exists; that if anything existed, the fact could not be known, and that if the fact were known, it could not be communicated; although of course, my dear madam, there are very grave objections to accepting such views in their fulness."

"Of course," echoed Valeria. "Pisander, read Pratinas that little poem of Archilochus, whose sentiment I so much admired, when I happened on it yesterday."

Pisander fumbled among his rolls, then read, perhaps throwing a bit of sarcasm into his tone:--

"Gyges'[67] wealth and honours great Come not nigh to me! Heavenly pow'r, or tyrant's state, I'll not envy thee. Swift let any sordid prize Fade and vanish from my eyes!"

[67] A Lydian king whose wealth was placed on a par with that of the better known Croesus.

"Your ladyship," said Pratinas, appearing entranced by the lines, "is ever in search of the pearls of refined expression!"

"I wish," said Valeria, whose mind ran from Gorgias to Archilochus, and then back to quite foreign matters, with lightning rapidity, "you would tell Kallias, the sculptor, that the head-dress on my statue in the atrium must be changed. I don't arrange my hair that way any longer. He must put on a new head-dress without delay."[68]

[68] Such alterations were actually made in Rome.

"Certainly," assented the Greek.

"And now," said the lady, half entreating, half insinuating, "_you must_ tell me what has made you so abstracted lately; that business you mentioned, which compelled you to restrict your calls."

"My dear Valeria," said Pratinas, casting a glance over at Pisander in his corner, "I dislike mysteries; but perhaps there are some things which I had better not reveal to any one. Don't be offended, but--"

"I am offended," exclaimed the lady, striking her lap with her hands, "and I accept no '_buts_.' I will be as silent about all your affairs as about the mysteries of the _Bona Dea_.[69]"

[69] To whose mysteries only women were admitted.

"I believe I can be confident you will not betray me," said Pratinas, who in fact considered precautions that were necessary to take among so blundering and thick-witted people as the Latins, almost superfluous. He muttered to himself, "I wouldn't dare to do this in Alexandria,--prate of a murder,--" and then glanced again toward Pisander.

"Pisander," said Valeria, sharply, noting Pratinas's disquietude, "go out of the room. I don't need you at present."

Pisander, unlike many contemporaries, was affected by a sensitive conscience. But if there was one man whom he despised to the bottom of his soul, it was Pratinas. Pratinas had lorded it over him and patronized him, in a way which drove the mild-tempered man of learning to desperation. The spirit of evil entered into the heart of Pisander as he left the room. The average chatter of Pratinas and Valeria had been gall and wormwood to him, and he had been glad enough to evade it; but here was Pratinas with a secret which he clearly did not wish Pisander to know. And Pisander, prompted by most unphilosophical motives, resolved within himself to play the eavesdropper. The boudoir was approached by three doors, one from the peristylium, one from Valeria's private sleeping chamber, one from the servants' quarters. Pisander went out through the first, and going through other rooms to the third, took his station by that entrance. He met Arsinoe, and took the friendly maid into his plot, by stationing her on guard to prevent the other servants from interfering with him. Then applying his ear to the large keyhole of the door, he could understand all that was passing in the boudoir. What Pratinas was saying it is hardly necessary to repeat. The Greek was relating with infinite zest, and to Valeria's intense delight and amusement, the story of the two wills which placed Drusus's estate and the hand of Cornelia within reach of Lucius Ahenobarbus; of the manner in which this last young man had been induced to take steps to make way with an unfortunate rival. Finally, in a low, half-audible tone, he told of the provisional arrangements with Dumnorix, and how very soon the plan was to be put in execution.

"And you must be sure and tell me," cried Valeria, clapping her hands when Pratinas concluded, "what the details of the affair all are, and when and how you succeed. Poor Quintus Drusus! I am really sorry for him. But when one doesn't make use of what Fortune has given him, there is nothing else to do!"

"Yes," said Pratinas, sententiously. "He who fails to realize what is for him the highest good, forfeits, thereby, the right to life itself."

Pisander slipped away from the keyhole, with a white face, and panting for breath. Briefly, he repeated what he had gathered to Arsinoe, then blurted out:--

"I will go in and meet that well-oiled villain face to face. By Zeus! I will make him feel the depths of an honest man's scorn and indignation!"

"You will be a fool," replied Arsinoe, quietly, "if you do. Valeria would instantly dismiss you from her service."

"I will go at once to Drusus," asserted Pisander.

"Drusus may or may not be convinced that what you say is true," answered the girl; "but he, I gather from what you repeat, has just gone back to Praeneste. Before you could reach Praeneste, you are a dead man."

"How so?" demanded the excited philosopher, brandishing his fists. "I am as strong as Pratinas."

"How little wisdom," commented Arsinoe, "you do gather from your books! Can't you see Pratinas is a reckless scoundrel--with every gladiator in Dumnorix's school at his call if needs be--who would stop at nothing to silence promptly the mouth of a dangerous witness? This isn't worse than many another case. Don't share the ruin of a man who is an utter stranger! We have troubles enough of our own."

And with this consolation Arsinoe left him, again consumed with impotent rage.

"Villain," fumed Pisander to himself, "if I could only place my fingers round your neck! But what can I do? What can I do? I am helpless, friendless, penniless! And I can only tear out my heart, and pretend to play the philosopher. I, a philosopher! If I were a true one, I would have had the courage to kill myself before this."

And in this mental state he continued, till he learned that Pratinas had taken his farewell, and that Calatinus wished him--since all the slaves seemed busy, and the poor house philosopher was often sent on menial errands--to go to the _Forum Boarium_,[70] and bring back some ribs of beef for a dinner that evening. Pisander went as bidden, tugging a large basket, and trying to muster up courage to continue his walk to the Fabrician Bridge, and plunge into the Tiber. In classic days suicide was a commendable act under a great many circumstances, and Pisander was perfectly serious and sincere in his belief that he and the world had been companions too long for the good of either. But the jar and din of the streets certainly served to make connected philosophical meditation upon the futility and unimportance of human existence decidedly unfruitful. By the time he reached the cattle-market the noise of this strange place drove all suicidal intentions from him. Butchers were slaughtering kine; drovers were driving oxen off of barges that had come down the Tiber; sheep and goats were bleating--everywhere around the stalls, booths, shops, and pens was the bustle of an enormous traffic. Pisander picked his way through the crowd, searching for the butcher to whom he had been especially sent. He had gone as far as the ancient shrine of Mater Matuta, which found place in these seemingly unhallowed precincts, when, as he gazed into the throng before him, his hair stood as it were on end, his voice choked in his throat, and cold sweat broke out over him. The next moment his hand was seized by another, young and hearty, and he was gasping forth the name of Agias.

[70] Cattle-market.