d by repeated acclamations, noisy outcries, and the applause
of those about him. Not till then had he been aware that the performances
had begun. Below him, indeed, on the arena from which he had not once
raised his eyes, nothing was to be seen on the yellow sand but the
scented fountain and a shapeless body, by which a second and a third were
soon lying; but overhead something was astir, and, from the right-hand
side, bright rays flashed across the wide space. Above the vast circle of
seats, arranged on seven tiers, suns and huge, strangely shaped stars
were seen, which shed a subdued, many-tinted radiance; and what the youth
saw over his head was not the vault of heaven, which to-night bent over
his native city darkened by clouds, but a velarium of immense size on
which the nocturnal firmament was depicted. This covered in the whole of
the open space. Every constellation which rose over Alexandria was
plainly recognizable. Jupiter and Mars, Caesar's favorites, outdid the
other planets in size and brightness; and in the center of this picture
of the sky, which slowly revolved round it, stars were set to form the
letters of Caracalla's names, Bassianus and Antoninus. But their light,
too, was dim, and veiled as it were with clouds. Soft music was heard
from these artificial heavens, and in the stratum of air immediately
beneath, the blare of war-trumpets and battle-cries were heard. Thus all
eyes were directed upward, and Diodoros's with the rest.

He perceived, with amazement, that the givers of the entertainment, in
their anxiety to set something absolutely new before their imperial
guest, had arranged that the first games should take place in the air. A
battle was being fought overhead, on a level with the highest places, in
a way that must surely be a surprise even to the pampered Romans. Black
and gold barks were jostling each other in mid-air, and their crews were
fighting with the energy of despair. The Egyptian myth of the gods of the
great lights who sail the celestial ocean in golden barks, and of the
sun-god who each morning conquers the demons of darkness, had suggested
the subject of this performance.

The battle between the Spirits of Darkness and of Light was to be fought
out high above the best rows of seats occupied by Caesar and his court;
and the combatants were living men, for the most part such as had been
condemned to death or to the hardest forced labor. The black vessels were
manned by negroes, t