he citizens passed an anxious night. The watch went their rounds on
the ramparts with torches, and small fires burnt at the spots where
broad flagstones covered the surface of the earth and turf.

The fires were extinguished at dawn of the early June morning; the
sentinels looked carefully out into the country in the full morning
light; there was nowhere a trace of the enemy.

Peasants came as usual from all parts into the town to sell or to buy.
They were astonished to find the gates closed. They were allowed to
pass in singly, all being carefully examined to see if they were
trustworthy people or spies, perhaps even barbarians in disguise.

But the inoffensive peasants were terrified at this unusual sharpness
of the gate-watch; to question them was without rhyme or reason. They
evidently knew nothing, and were much more zealous and anxious to
inquire in the town what had taken place.

From the north-west, in the direction of Vindelicia, from which the
approach of the barbarians was expected, the country people had come
in, as usual, in numbers; they had observed nothing suspicious. But
from the south-east hardly anyone came. It excited no remark, few
villas and houses lay that way, and it was only seldom that a
frequenter of the market came from thence. One might have considered
the fright of the previous evening as a dream, only the dead horseman
was a silent witness to its actuality.

The first hours of the day passed away without any threatening
indications; there was no enemy visible even in the far distance; the
bridge over the Ivarus below the town (a second joined the two banks
within the walls) was seen to be unoccupied.

As the Tribune was still kept a prisoner in the Capitol by the accident
to his knee, Severus ordered the Vindelician gate to be opened; he went
with a company to the bridge, caused the end on the left, western bank
to be barricaded with pieces of rock and timber, left there thirty
spearmen and slingers, and then returned to the town quite satisfied
that there was no trace of the enemy. But the old soldier did not relax
his watchfulness; he ordered the gates to be kept closed and the towers
garrisoned, and any occurrence was to be notified immediately to him in
the Bath of Amphitrite, whither he now went, to wash away the cares of
the night and the heat and dust of the march.

After having fully enjoyed the bath, he sat comfortably on the soft
woollen rug covering the marble seat, which