face had
expressed nothing but stolid indifference whilst the colloquy between
the purchasers and the auctioneer had been going on.

The next piece of goods however was in more pressing demand; a solid
German, with massive thorax half-hidden beneath a shaggy goatskin held
in at the waist by a belt; his hairy arms bare to the shoulder, his
gigantic fists clenched as if ready to fell an ox.

A useful man with plough or harrow, he was said to be skilled in smith's
work too. After a preliminary and minute examination of the man's
muscles, of his teeth, of the calves of his legs, bidding became very
brisk between an agriculturist from Sicilia and a freedman from the
Campania, until the praefect himself intervened, desiring the slave for
his own use on a farm which he had near Ostia.

Some waiting-maids from Judaea fetched goodly money; an innkeeper of
Etruria bought them, for they were well-looking and knew how to handle
and carry wine jars without shaking up the costly liquor; and the
negroes were sought after by the lanistae for training to gladiatorial
combats.

Scribes were also in great demand for copying purposes. The
disseminators of the news of the day were willing to pay high prices for
quick shorthand writers who had learned their business in the house of
Arminius the censor.

In the meanwhile the throng in the Forum had become more and more dense.
Already one or two gorgeously draped litters had been seen winding their
way in from the Sacra Via or the precincts of the temples, their silken
draperies making positive notes of brilliant colour against the
iridescent whiteness of Phrygian marble walls.

The lictors now had at times to use their flails against the crowd.
Room had to be made for the masters of Rome, the wealthy and the idle,
who threw sesterces about for the gratification of their smallest whim,
as a common man would shake the dust from his shoes.

Young Hortensius Martius, the rich patrician owner of five thousand
slaves, had stepped out of his litter, and a way being made for him in
the crowd by his men, he had strolled up to the rostrum, and mounting
its first gradient he leaned with studied grace against the block of
white marble, giving to the common herd below the pleasing spectacle of
a young exquisite, rich and well-favoured--his handsome person carefully
perfumed and bedecked after the morning bath, his crisp fair hair
daintily curled, his body clad in a tunic of soft white wool splendi