mayhap would have purchased every inhabited house
in the entire civilised world or every slave who was ever put up in the
market. Marcus Ancyrus, they say, could have pulled down every temple in
the Forum and rebuilt it at his own cost, and Philippus Decius who was
there had recently spent the sum of fifty million sesterces upon the
building and equipment of his new villa at Herculaneum.

Young Hortensius Martius was there, too, he who was said to own more
slaves than anyone else in Rome, and Augustus Philario of the household
of Caesar, who had once declared that he would give one hundred thousand
aurei for a secret poison that would defy detection.

"Why is not Taurus Antinor here this evening?" asked Marcus Ancyrus when
this little group of privileged guests once more turned back toward the
triclinium.

"I think that he will be here anon," replied the host. "I have sent him
word that I desired speech with him on business of the State and that I
craved the honour of his company."

They all assembled at the head of the now deserted tables. The few
slaves who had remained at the bidding of their master had re-draped
the couches and re-set the crystal goblets of wine and the gold dishes
with fresh fruit. The long narrow hall looked strangely mournful now
that the noisy guests had departed, and the sweet-scented oil in the
lamps had begun to burn low.

The table, laden with empty jars, with broken goblets, and remnants of
fruits and cakes, looked uninviting and even weird in its aspect of
departed cheer. The couches beneath their tumbled draperies of richly
dyed silk looked bedraggled and forlorn, whilst the stains of wine upon
the fine white cloths looked like widening streams of blood. Under the
shadows of elaborate carvings in the marble of the walls ghost-like
shadows flickered and danced as the smoke from the oil lamp wound its
spiral curves upwards to the gilded ceiling above. And in the great
vases of priceless murra roses and lilies and white tuberoses, the
spoils of costly glasshouses, were slowly drooping in the heavy
atmosphere. The whole room, despite its rich hangings and gilded
pillars, wore a curious air of desolation and of gloom; mayhap Caius
Nepos himself was conscious of this, for as he followed his guests from
out the atrium he gave three loud claps with his hands, and a troupe of
young girls came in carrying bunches of fresh flowers and some newly
filled lamps.

These they placed at the head o