and turned their heads to look at the Roman
liburna, which could barely be distinguished near the tower in the port,
wrapped in the shadows of evening. Then they walked slowly onward, as if
in deep thought.

"You know," continued one of them, "that I am only a shoemaker who has
his shop near the Forum and has been able to save a sack of silver
victoriati in order to live at ease in his old age, and to spend the
afternoons at the port, rod in hand. I do not know as much as those
rhetoricians who stroll up and down outside the city wall disputing and
shouting like Furies, nor do I worry my brain as do the philosophers who
gather on the porticos of the Forum to quarrel amid the jests of the
merchants as to whether this or that one of the men who occupy
themselves there in Athens with such matters is in the right. But, with
all my ignorance, I ask myself, neighbor, why this strife between us
men who live in the same city who should deal with one another like good
brothers? Why?"

The shoemaker's comrade replied with vigorous nods of assent.

"I understand," continued the artisan, "that from time to time we shall
be at war with our neighbors the Turdetani. Sometimes on account of a
question of irrigation, again on account of pasture-grounds, but mainly
because of boundary lines, and to keep them from enjoying this beautiful
port, I understand that the citizens take up arms and seek battle, going
out to destroy their fields and burn their huts. But those people are
not of our race, and that is how a great city makes itself respected.
Besides, war yields slaves, which often are scarce, and what would we
men, we citizens, do without slaves?"

"I am poorer than you, neighbor," said the other fisherman. "I do not
earn as much making saddles as you do making shoes; but in spite of my
poverty I can afford to have a Turdetan slave, who helps me very much,
and I desire war, because it brings in considerably more work."

"War with our neighbors--that is welcome. The young men are restless,
and seek ways of distinguishing themselves, the Republic acquires
importance in consequence, and, after tramping through valleys and
mountains, all will buy shoes and have their saddles mended. Very well;
that enlivens business. But why have we been at work for over a year
converting the Forum into a battlefield and turning every street into a
fortress? At best you are in your shop extolling to a citizeness the
elegance of a pair of papyrus san