s military accoutrements which he had preserved
after his carouse. The white surface, with a silver boss in the centre,
surrounded by first a white and then a red circle, and the purple border,
showed that he belonged to the Tertiani or third Italic Legion, which had
been stationed in Africa since the time of Augustus. "Vile double-tongued
mongrels," he continued, "what are you fit for but to gather the fruits of
the earth for your owners and lords, 'Romanos dominos rerum'? And if there
are now no fruits to reap, why your service is gone. Go home and die, and
drown yourselves, for what are you fit for now, except to take your dead
corpses away from the nostrils of a Roman, the cream of humankind? Ye
base-born apes, that's why you catch the pestilence, because our blood
mantles and foams in our ruddy veins like new milk in the wine cup, which
is too strong for this clime, and my blood is up, and I drink a full
measure of it to great Rome; for what does old Horace say, but 'Nunc est
bibendum'? and so get out of my way."

To a good part of the multitude, both peasantry and town rabble, Latin was
unintelligible; but they all understood vocabulary and syntax and logic,
as soon as he drew his knuckles across one fellow's face who refused to
move from his path, and as soon as his insult was returned by the latter
with a thrust of the dagger. A rush was made upon him, on which he made a
face at them, shook his fist, and leaping on one side, ran with great
swiftness to an open space in advance. From his quarrelsome humour rather
than from fear, he raised a cry of alarm; on which two or three
fellow-soldiers made their appearance from similar dens of intoxication
and vice, and came up to the rescue. The mob assailed them with stones,
and the cream of human nature was likely to be roughly churned, when,
seeing matters were becoming serious, they suddenly took to their heels,
and got into the Temple of Esculapius on one side of the Forum. The mob
followed, the ministers of the sacred place attempted to shut the gates, a
scuffle ensued, and a riot was in progress. Self-preservation is the first
law of man; trembling for the safety of his noble buildings, and
considering that it was a bread riot, as it really was, the priest of the
god came forward, rebuked the mob for its impiety, and showed the
absurdity of supposing that there were loaves in his enclosure to satisfy
its wants; but he reminded them that there was a baker's shop at th