in consigned to the lower dungeon. I was, to be sure, given good and
abundant food and wine not too unpalatable. Otherwise I had no indulgences
and there I spent the night.

Next day, the last day of June, Galen again visited me.

"My lad," he said, "the first rule of medicine is to cheer up the patient,
but I must say that your case looks grave and I have little cheer for you.
I shall do my best and so will Tanno, Vedia and Agathemer. But we are all
dazed. We cannot understand what has happened, nor who has brought it to
pass, nor what influences are working against us.

"But someone has gotten the ear of Juvenalis or of Severus himself. It has
been represented plausibly to the Prefect of the Praetorium, or perhaps
even to the Emperor in person, that the courts here in Rome have fallen
into a shocking state of disrepute on account of decisions in scandalous
contravention of the evidence, brought about by favoritism and bribery. It
has also been plausibly represented that the slave-population has little
respect for the lives or property of their masters, less loyalty towards
them and very little dread of punishment. Your alleged murder of poor
Falco is held up as a flagrant example of the latter condition, your
acquittal as an even more flagrant instance of the degradation of the
courts.

"Believing that a shocking miscarriage of justice has taken place
concerning an atrocious crime, the Prefect or the Prince has ordered you
rearrested and retried, tomorrow, this time before Cassius Ravillanus."

I shuddered, not metaphorically, but actually. I felt cold all over, as if
plunged into an icy mountain stream. Ravillanus claimed as his ancestor
Cassius Ravilla and aimed at emulating him. Certainly, as a magistrate, he
quite frankly talked and acted as if acquittal were a disgrace to the
court, and the object of each trial not impartial justice but the
conviction of the accused. He was perfectly sincere, upright in every
intention, incorruptible, fanatical, self-opinionated, austere, ascetic,
stern and harsh. I shuddered again and again at the thought of him.

"Ravillanus has the reputation of being unbribable," Galen went on, 'and
it is a question whether an attempt at bribery might not prejudice your
case more than letting matters be. Yet I have employed an agent far too
clever to bungle any approach, and something may be done for you. Vedia is
despondent, but resolute to keep her head and help you all she can, and
sh