great deal before it became too much for
him. But then he would break out like a mad bull, and he might long ago
have risen to higher rank, had he not once in such a fit of passion
nearly throttled a fellow-soldier. For this crime he had been severely
punished, and condemned to begin again at the bottom of the ladder. He
owed it chiefly to the young tribune Aurelius Apollinaris that he had
very soon regained the centurion's staff, in spite of his humble birth;
he had saved that officer's life in the war with the Armenians--to be
here, in Alexandria, cruelly mutilated by the hand of his sovereign.

The centurion had a faithful heart. He was as much attached to the two
noble brothers as to his wife and children, for indeed he owed them much;
and if the service had allowed it he would long since have made his way
to the house of Seleukus to learn how the wounded tribune was faring. But
he had not time even to see his own family, for his younger and richer
comrades, who wanted to enjoy the pleasures of the city, had put upon him
no small share of their own duties. Only this morning a young soldier of
high birth, who had begun his career at the same time as Martialis, had
promised him some tickets of admission to the evening's performance in
the Circus if he would take his duty on guard outside the amphitheatre.
And this offer had been very welcome to the centurion, for he thus found
it possible to give those he loved best, his wife and his mother, the
greatest treat which could be offered to any Alexandrian. And now, when
anything noteworthy was to be seen outside, he only regretted that he had
already some time since conducted them to their seats in one of the upper
rows. He would have liked that they, too, should have seen the horses and
the chariots and the "Blue" charioteer's turquoises and sapphires;
although a decurion observed, as he saw them, that a Roman patrician
would scorn to dress out his person with such barbaric splendor, and an
Alexandrian of the praetorian guard declared that his fellow-citizens of
Greek extraction thought more of a graceful fold than of whole strings of
precious stones.

"But why, then, was this 'Blue' so vehemently hailed by the mob!" asked a
Pannonian in the guard.

"The mob!" retorted the Alexandrian, scornfully. "Only the Syrians and
other Asiatics. Look at the Greeks. The great merchant Seleukus is the
richest of them all, but splendid as his horses, his chariots, and his
slaves ar