"superior equal," but he would
not act as his personal agent or assistant. The Roman aristocrat had
not yet learned to serve in that capacity, still less on the
"household" staff of the autocrat. There were as yet no highly placed
Romans serving as Lord High Chamberlain, much less as Private
Secretary. The "knights" stood in a different position. They were
prepared to be the emperor's personal agents, just as they were
prepared to be the agents of any one else, if sufficiently
remunerated. They would take his personal orders, whether in managing
his estates, collecting his provincial revenues, or relieving him of
some routine portion of his own official labour.

It follows that it was often more lucrative to be a knight than a
senator, and a number of senators were not unwilling to give up their
rank, for the same reasons which induce a modern peer to serve on
companies or a peeress to open a shop. On the other hand many a knight
would have declined to become a senator, at least until he had
sufficiently feathered his nest. The inducement to become or remain a
senator was the social rank, the honour and dignity, with their
outward insignia and the deference paid to them, the front seat, and
the reception at court. In these the wives also shared, and at Rome
the influence of the wife could not be disregarded.

If you met a senator, or a person of senatorial rank, in the street,
you would know him for such by the broad band of purple which ran down
the front, and probably also down the back, of his tunic, and by the
silver or ivory crescent which he wore upon his black shoes. His wife,
it is perhaps needless to say made even more show of what is called
the "broad stripe." If you met a knight, you would perceive his
standing by his two narrow stripes of purple appearing upon the same
part of his dress. Each would wear a gold ring; but that in itself
would prove nothing, since, despite all attempts at prohibiting the
custom, every Roman who could afford a gold ring permitted himself
that luxury.

If you entered one of the large semicircular theatres, which are to be
described in due course, you would find that the men wearing the broad
stripe seated themselves in the chairs which stood upon the level in
front of the stage, while those wearing the narrow stripes would
occupy the first fourteen tiers of seats rising just behind them. No
one else might, occupy those places. If some one who had been
improperly posing as a