ity, with
its wealth of art and stores of gold, was envied of conquerors. Situated
between the mountains, its inhabitants had a noble chance of making it
beautiful, and, being skilled in art and endowed with learning, they
built temples of the noblest design, erected statues of the richest
order, painted pictures of the grandest conception. Odeum and theatre
all sprang forth in magical beauty and power, whilst villas replete with
elegance combined to make it one of the loveliest cities, surrounded
with hills and groves and the traditions of a line of centuries.

The great market was being filled with men and women offering the most
tempting products of the land. Groups were selling and buying fruits,
flowers and perfumes, bread, fish and wine. Ribbon-sellers,
chaplet-weavers, money-changers--all were there; and the people
purchased for their daily needs, whilst others bought rich offerings for
the temples of their goddess and their gods.

Here and there the ground was covered with flowers of richest shades and
sweetest fragrance, and great branches with clustering blossoms of
crimson oleander and myrtle lay around.

From the house of the Roman Lady Venusta the slave Saronia had come to
buy. She was clothed in the simplest manner, tall and beautifully
formed, with eyes speaking a tale of sadness and a weariness of life; a
dignified slave, but a slave nevertheless, purchased but a year ago, and
brought hither by a trading-barque from Sidon, in Phoenicia, where she
had served as a slave from childhood.

She gathered together her pomegranates, citrons, almonds, olives, and
flowers, placed them in her basket of wickerwork, walked out of the
market, and passed up the way which led to the home of her mistress. But
the splendour to which she hastened was a prison to her. She so full of
young life, she who felt within her the rising for supremacy (an
unquenchable spirit), she with a mystic flame burning up her soul, felt
it was not a home but a waiting-place until the Fates passed by and led
her on.

True, Venusta treated Saronia fairly well, but Nika, her daughter, hated
her--from the first she hated her. And why this hate? Nika herself could
scarcely say; but who has not felt this subtle power to love or hate at
first sight--an intuitive something which draws or repels without our
reason or consent? Perhaps it was the great sadness of Saronia's eyes,
the overflowing influence of a mighty spirit, that Nika disliked so
muc