tors, who were awaiting him with his chariot,
to hasten to his house, and to conduct to Pontius several most worthy
slaves, familiar with Alexandria--some of whom he named--and at the same
time to send the architect a good couch with pillows and coverlets, and
to despatch a good meal and fine wine to the old palace at Lochias. Then
he mounted his chariot and drove through the Bruchiom along the shore to
the great edifice known as the Caesareum. He got on but slowly, for the
nearer he approached his destination the denser was the crowd of
inquisitive citizens, who stood closely packed round the vast
circumference of the building. Quite from a distance the prefect could
see a bright light; it rose to heaven from the large pans of pitch which
were placed on the towers on each side of the tall gate of the Caesareum
which faced the sea. To the right and left of this gate stood a tall
obelisk, and on each of these, men were lighting lamps which had been
attached to the sides and placed on the top, on the previous day.

"In honor of Sabina," said the prefect to himself. "All that this Pontius
does is thoroughly done, and there is no more complete sinecure than the
supervision of his arrangements."

Fully persuaded of this he did not think it necessary to go up to the
illuminated door-way which led into the temple erected by Octavian in
honor of Julius Caesar; on the contrary, he directed the charioteer to
stop at a door built in the Egyptian style, which faced the garden of the
palace of the Ptolemies, and which led to the imperial residence that had
been built by the Alexandrians for Tiberius, and had been greatly
extended and beautified under the later Caesars. A sacred grove divided
it from the temple of Caesar, with which it communicated by a covered
colonnade. Before this door there were several chariots and horses, and a
whole host of slaves, black and white, were in attendance with their
masters' litters. Here lictors kept back the sight-seeking crowd,
officers were lounging against the pillars, and the Roman guard were just
assembling with a clatter of arms, to the sound of a trumpet within the
door, to await their dismissal.

Everything gave way respectfully before the chariot of the prefect, and
as Titianus walked through the illuminated arcades of the Caesareum,
passing by the masterpieces of statuary placed there, and the rows of
pictures--and reached the halls in which the library of the palace was
kept, he coul