h he
had not once raised his eyes, nothing was to be seen on the yellow sand
but the scented fountain and a shapeless body, by which a second and a
third were soon lying; but overhead something was astir, and, from the
right-hand side, bright rays flashed across the wide space. Above the
vast circle of seats, arranged on seven tiers, suns and huge, strangely
shaped stars were seen, which shed a subdued, many-tinted radiance;
and what the youth saw over his head was not the vault of heaven, which
to-night bent over his native city darkened by clouds, but a velarium of
immense size on which the nocturnal firmament was depicted. This covered
in the whole of the open space. Every constellation which rose over
Alexandria was plainly recognizable. Jupiter and Mars, Caesar's
favorites, outdid the other planets in size and brightness; and in the
center of this picture of the sky, which slowly revolved round it,
stars were set to form the letters of Caracalla's names, Bassianus and
Antoninus. But their light, too, was dim, and veiled as it were with
clouds. Soft music was heard from these artificial heavens, and in
the stratum of air immediately beneath, the blare of war-trumpets
and battle-cries were heard. Thus all eyes were directed upward, and
Diodoros's with the rest.

He perceived, with amazement, that the givers of the entertainment,
in their anxiety to set something absolutely new before their imperial
guest, had arranged that the first games should take place in the air. A
battle was being fought overhead, on a level with the highest places, in
a way that must surely be a surprise even to the pampered Romans. Black
and gold barks were jostling each other in mid-air, and their crews were
fighting with the energy of despair. The Egyptian myth of the gods of
the great lights who sail the celestial ocean in golden barks, and
of the sun-god who each morning conquers the demons of darkness, had
suggested the subject of this performance.

The battle between the Spirits of Darkness and of Light was to be fought
out high above the best rows of seats occupied by Caesar and his court;
and the combatants were living men, for the most part such as had been
condemned to death or to the hardest forced labor. The black vessels
were manned by negroes, the golden by fair-haired criminals, and they
had embarked readily enough; for some of them would escape from the fray
with only a few wounds and some quite unhurt, and each one was resol