en while he
perfumed himself with oil of saffron out of a little onyx bottle, he
went on:--

[28] At an age when respectable men were almost invariably smooth
shaven, the philosophers wore flowing beards, as a sort of professional
badge.

"What dogs and gluttons these Romans are! They have no real taste for
art, for beauty. They cannot even conduct a murder, save in a bungling
way. They have to call in us Hellenes to help them. Ha! ha! this is
the vengeance for Hellas, for the sack and razing of Corinth and all
the other atrocities! Rome can conquer with the sword; but we Greeks,
though conquered, can, unarmed, conquer Rome. How these Italians can
waste their money! Villas, statues, pretty slaves, costly vases, and
tables of mottled cypress,[29] oysters worth their weight in gold, and
I know not what else! And I, poor Pratinas, the Greek, who lives in an
upper floor of a Subura house at only two thousand sesterces rental,
find in these noble Roman lords only so much plunder. Ha! ha! Hellas,
thou art avenged!"

[29] A "fad" of this time. Such tables often cost $20,000.

And gathering his mantle about him, he went down the several flights
of very rickety stairs, and found himself in the buzzing street.

II

The Romans hugged a fond belief that houses shut out from sunlight and
air were extremely healthy. If such were the fact, there should have
been no sickness in a great part of the capital. The street in which
Pratinas found himself was so dark, that he was fain to wait till his
eyes accommodated themselves to the change. The street was no wider
than an alley, yet packed with booths and hucksters,--sellers of
boiled peas and hot sausage, and fifty other wares. On the worthy
Hellene pressed, while rough German slaves or swarthy Africans jostled
against him; the din of scholars declaiming in an adjoining school
deafened him; a hundred unhappy odors made him wince. Then, as he
fought his way, the streets grew a trifle wider; as he approached the
Forum the shops became more pretentious; at last he reached his
destination in the aristocratic quarter of the Palatine, and paused
before a new and ostentatious mansion, in whose vestibule was swarming
a great bevy of clients, all come in the official calling costume--a
ponderous toga--to pay their respects to the great man. But as the
inner door was pushed aside by the vigilant keeper, all the rest of
the crowd were kept out till Pratinas could pass within.

T