hrottled a fellow-soldier. For this crime he had been severely
punished, and condemned to begin again at the bottom of the ladder. He
owed it chiefly to the young tribune Aurelius Apollinaris that he had
very soon regained the centurion's staff, in spite of his humble birth;
he had saved that officer's life in the war with the Armenians--to be
here, in Alexandria, cruelly mutilated by the hand of his sovereign.

The centurion had a faithful heart. He was as much attached to the two
noble brothers as to his wife and children, for indeed he owed them
much; and if the service had allowed it he would long since have made
his way to the house of Seleukus to learn how the wounded tribune was
faring. But he had not time even to see his own family, for his younger
and richer comrades, who wanted to enjoy the pleasures of the city, had
put upon him no small share of their own duties. Only this morning a
young soldier of high birth, who had begun his career at the same
time as Martialis, had promised him some tickets of admission to the
evening's performance in the Circus if he would take his duty on guard
outside the amphitheatre. And this offer had been very welcome to the
centurion, for he thus found it possible to give those he loved best,
his wife and his mother, the greatest treat which could be offered
to any Alexandrian. And now, when anything noteworthy was to be seen
outside, he only regretted that he had already some time since conducted
them to their seats in one of the upper rows. He would have liked that
they, too, should have seen the horses and the chariots and the "Blue"
charioteer's turquoises and sapphires; although a decurion observed, as
he saw them, that a Roman patrician would scorn to dress out his person
with such barbaric splendor, and an Alexandrian of the praetorian guard
declared that his fellow-citizens of Greek extraction thought more of a
graceful fold than of whole strings of precious stones.

"But why, then, was this 'Blue' so vehemently hailed by the mob!" asked
a Pannonian in the guard.

"The mob!" retorted the Alexandrian, scornfully. "Only the Syrians and
other Asiatics. Look at the Greeks. The great merchant Seleukus is the
richest of them all, but splendid as his horses, his chariots, and his
slaves are, he himself wears only the simple Macedonian mantle. Though
it is of costly material, who would suspect it? If you see a man
swaggering in such a blaze of gems you may wager your house--if