t.

Nor did the praefect perform his duty with any show of inhumanity or
conscious cruelty. Himself a wealthy member of the patriciate, second
only to the Caesar, with a seat in the Senate and a household full of
slaves, he had neither horror nor contempt for the state of slavery--a
necessary one in the administration of the mightiest Empire in the
world.

Many there were who averred that the praefect of Rome was himself the
descendant of a freedman--a prisoner of war brought over by Caesar from
the North--who had amassed wealth and purchased his own freedom. Indeed
his name proclaimed his foreign origin, for he was called Taurus Antinor
Anglicanus, and surnamed Niger because of his dark eyes and sun-tanned
skin. Certain it is that when the sale of Arminius' goods was ordered by
imperial edict for the benefit of the State, no one complained that the
praefect decided to preside over the sale himself.

He had discharged such duties before and none had occasion to complain
of the manner in which he did it. In these days of unbridled excesses
and merciless outbursts of rage, he remained throughout--on these
occasions--temperate and even impassive.

He only ordered his lictor to use the flail when necessary, when the
bundle of human goods was so huddled up that it ceased to look
attractive, and likely purchasers seemed to fall away. Then, at his
command, the heavy thongs would descend indiscriminately on the bronze
shoulder of an Ethiopian or the fair skin of a barbarian from the North;
but he gave the order without any show of cruelty or passion, just as he
heard the responsive cry of pain without any outward sign of pity.

CHAPTER II

"To be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than
vanity."--PSALM LXII. 9.

As the day wore on, trade became more brisk and the work of the lictors
more arduous, for the crowd was dense and the bargain-hunters eager to
push to the front.

Now a bronze-skinned artisan with slender limbs and narrow tapering
hands was attracting attention. He was standing on the platform, passive
and indifferent, apparently unconscious alike of the scorching sun which
bit into his bare flesh, as of the murmurs of the dealers round him and
the eloquence of the African up on the rostrum, who was shouting himself
hoarse in praise of his wares.

"A leather worker from Hispania," he thundered with persuasive rhetoric,
"his age but two dozen years, his skill unequalled on either bank of t