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rich Greek from Corinth, who had settled in Rome to enjoy an artistic
leisure, and had built, near the gardens of Sallust, a tasteful house,
which became the focus of luxury and polite society.

Besides the rich Roman aristocracy, this house was particularly
frequented by artists and scholars; and also by that stratum of the
Roman youth, which could spare little time and thought from its horses,
chariots and dogs for the State, and which until now had therefore been
inaccessible to the influence of the Prefect.

For this reason Cethegus was well-pleased when young Lucius Licinius,
now his most devoted adherent, brought him an invitation from the
Corinthian.

"I know," said Licinius modestly, "that we can offer you no appropriate
entertainment; and if the Falernian and Cyprian, with which
Kallistratos regales his guests, do not entice you, you can decline to
come."

"No, my son; I will come," said Cethegus; "and it is not the old
Cyprian which tempts me, but the young Romans."

Kallistratos, who loved to display his Grecian origin, had built his
house in the midst of Rome in Grecian style; not in the style then
prevalent, but in that of the free Greece of Pericles, which, by
contrast with the tasteless overcharging usual in Rome in those days,
made an impression of noble simplicity.

Through a narrow passage one entered the peristyle, or open court,
surrounded by a colonnade, in the centre of which a splashing fountain
fell into a coloured marble basin. The colonnade, open to the north,
contained, besides other rooms, the banqueting hall, in which the
company was now assembled.

Cethegus had stipulated that he should not be present at the c[oe]na,
or actual banquet, but only at the compotatio, the drinking-bout which
followed.

So he found the friends in the elegant drinking-room, where the bronze
lamps upon the tortoise-shell slabs on the walls were already lighted,
and the guests, crowned with roses and ivy, lay upon the cushions of
the horse-shoe-shaped triclinium.

A stupefying mixture of wine-odours and flower-scents, a glare of
torches and glow of colour, met him upon the threshold.

"_Salve_, Cethegus!" cried the host, as he entered. "You find but a
small party."

Cethegus ordered the slave who followed him, a beautiful and slender
young Moor, whose finely-shaped limbs were rather revealed than hidden
by the scarlet gauze of his light tunic, to unloose his sandals.
Meanwhile he counted the guest