gained liberty; paraded a many-folded toga; and
used part of the donatives which Drusus and Fabia had lavished upon
him, in buying one or two slave-boys of his own, whom, so far from
treating gently on account of his own lately servile position, he
cuffed and abused with grim satisfaction at being able to do what had
so often been done to him.

Agias had been given lodgings by Drusus in a tenement house, owned by
the latter, in the Subura.

The rooms were over a bakery, and at the sides were a doctor's and
surgeon's office and a barber's shop--a rendezvous which gave the
young Greek an admirable chance to pick up the current gossip. Every
street-pedler, every forum-idler, had his political convictions and
pet theories. The partisans who arrogated to themselves the modest
epithet of "The Company of All Good Men," clamoured noisily that
"Liberty and Ancient Freedom" were in danger, if Caesar set foot in
Rome save as an impeached traitor. And the Populares--the supporters
of the proconsul--raged equally fiercely against the greed of the
Senate party that wished to perpetuate itself forever in office. Agias
could only see that neither faction really understood the causes for
and against which they fought; and observed in silence, trusting that
his patron knew more of the issues than he.

But the newly manumitted freedman was thoroughly enjoying himself. The
windy speeches in the Senate, the crowded and excited meetings in the
Forum, the action and reaction of the tides of popular prejudice and
fancy, the eloquence of Antonius, and the threatenings and ravings of
Marcellus the consul--all these were interesting but not disturbing.
Agias was catching glimpses of a little Olympus of his own--an Olympus
in which he was at once Zeus, Poseidon, and Apollo; Sesostris--so he
declared--the lame cup-bearer Hephaestus; and in place of Hera, Athena,
and Aphrodite, were the smiles and laughter of Artemisia. Agias was
head over ears in love with this pretty little cage-bird shut up in
Pratinas's gloomy suite of rooms. Her "uncle" took her out now and
then to the theatre or to the circus; but she had had little enough
companionship save such as Sesostris could give; and to her, Agias was
a wonderful hero, the master of every art, the victor over a hundred
monsters. He had told her of his adventure with Phaon--not calling
names, lest disagreeable consequences ensue--and Artemisia dreamed of
him as the cleverest creature on the earth, a