at I can't get through the work of the
month. We ought to be sheep-shearing; you have no chance of wool. We ought
to be swarming the bees, pressing the honey, boiling and purifying the
wax. We ought to be plucking the white leaves of the camomile, and
steeping the golden flowers in oil. We ought to be gathering the wild
grapes, sifting off the flowers, and preserving the residue in honey. We
ought to be sowing brassicum, parsley, and coriander against next spring.
We ought to be cheese-making. We ought to be baking white and red bricks
and tiles in the sun; we have no hands for the purpose. The _villicus_ is
not to blame, but the anger of the gods." The country _employe_ of the
procurator of the imperial _Baphia_ protests that the insect cannot be
found from which the dye is extracted; and argues that the locusts must
have devoured them, or the plant on which they feed, or that they have
been carried off by the pestilence. Here is old Corbulus in agonies for
his febrifuge, and a slave of his is in high words with the
market-carrier, who tells him that Mago, who supplied it, is dead of a
worse fever than his master's. "The rogue," cried the slave, "my master
has contracted with him for the year, and has paid him the money in
advance." A jeering and mocking from the crowd assailed the unfortunate
domestic, who so truly foreboded that his return without the medicine
would be the signal for his summary committal to the _pistrinum_. "Let old
Corbulus follow Mago in his passage to perdition," said one of the rabble;
"let him take his physic with Pluto, and leave us the bread and wine on
which he's grown gouty." "Bread, bread!" was the response elicited by this
denunciation, and it spread into a circle larger than that of which the
slave and the carrier were part.

"Wine and bread, Ceres and Liber!" cried a young legionary, who, after a
night of revelry, was emerging still half-intoxicated from one of the low
wine-shops in the vaults which formed the basement of the _Thermae_ or hot
baths; "make way there, you filthy slime of the earth, you half-kneaded,
half-fermented Africans, who never yet have quite been men, but have ever
smelt strong of the baboon, who are three quarters _must_, and two
vinegar, and a fifth water,--as I was saying, you are like bad liquor, and
the sight of you disagrees with the stomach and affects the eyes."

The crowd looked sullenly, and without wincing, at his shield, which was
the only portion of hi