gings which draped the upper colonnade, and
by the clingy audience, against the yellow sand, that column of sooty
smoke and below it the red glare of the blazing pyre.

CHAPTER XXXVI

ANXIETY

After my seclusion at Baiae, up to the terrible events which I am about to
narrate, by far the most important of my experiences had been my personal
observations of the fights of Palus the Gladiator and what I had heard and
thought about him. Therefore I have narrated those at length and first.
Now I approach the story of my most dreadful miseries.

From my return to Rome my life had gone on much as it had before my master
had compelled me to impersonate Salsonius Salinator and, in so doing, to
resume my natural appearance as I had looked while my genuine self, and
thus, undisguised, to mingle with the associates of my normal early life.
After my hair and beard had regained their previous luxuriance and I was
again painted, rouged, frizzed, bejeweled, and bedizened, I felt safe and,
was in fact, almost entirely safe. In this guise I enjoyed life. Falco was
indulgent to me and I had every luxury at my command.

Falco's mania for gem-collecting did not wane, but, if possible, grew on
him. His ventures all prospered, his profits from risky speculations
poured in, his normal income from his heritage increased; and, of all this
opulence, every surplus denarius was paid out for gems and curios. Yet he
never was so much a faddist as to lose a day from the games of the circus
and the amphitheater. He viewed every show of gladiators, every day of
racing, almost every combat and every race.

The day after the spectacular games for Murmex and his more spectacular
cremation, the eighth day before the Kalends of January, was nominally the
last racing day of the year. The weather was fair and mild. The Circus
Maximus was crowded, the Imperial Pavilion blazed with the retinue about
the Emperor, he and all of us enjoyed the thirty races of four four-horsed
chariots to each. I mention this because it was his last public
appearance.

The festivities of the Saturnalia, which I had prepared for according to
Falco's orders with lavish prodigality, left me more than a little weary.
I spent some days mostly in resting and dozing, being drowsy all day, even
with long nights of sound sleep.

On the fatal last day of the year I did not go out, but read or dozed and
went early to bed. I slept heavily, knowing nothing from composing myself
i