finesse about Satronius, not a trace.

From amid his bevy of sycophants and toadies, over the heads of his
fashionably garbed guests, he towered, his face red as a beacon, his big
bullet head wagging, his great mouth open.

He roared at me:

"What brings you here, with your hands red with the blood of three of my
henchmen? No Greek can outdo you in effrontery, Andivius. You are the
shame of our nobility. To force your way into my morning reception after
having killed three of my men in an unprovoked assault on them on the open
road on my own land!"

I kept my temper and somehow kept my head clear, though it buzzed, and I
kept my feet though I seemed to myself to reel. I spoke up for myself
boldly and, I thought, expounded the circumstances and my version of the
brawls even better than I had to Vedius.

To my amazement Satronius, in more brutal language, all but duplicated
what Vedius had said to me, only reversing the clan names. He was
convinced that I had assaulted his men by prearrangement with the Vedians,
after a mock fight with them at Vediamnum.

I saw I was accomplishing nothing and endeavored to escape after a formal
farewell.

Satronius roared after me:

"You left three corpses on the roadway below my villa. I'll not forget
them nor will any man of my name. If you have sense you'll keep away from
Sabinum, you'll get out of Rome, you'll hide yourself far away. My men
have long memories and keen eyes. There'll be another corpse found
somewhere by and by and the score paid off."

I laughed mirthlessly to myself as I climbed into my litter. I had, in
fact, embroiled myself hopelessly with both sides of the feud.

Then my men carried me to the Palace.

The enormousness and magnificence of the great public throne-room had
always overwhelmed me with a sense of my own insignificance. On that
morning, chagrined at my reception by Vedius and Satronius, weak, ill and
tottering on my feet, needing all my will power to stand steadily and not
reel, with my head buzzing and my ears humming, feeling large and light
and queer, I was abased and crushed by the vastness and hugeness of the
room and by the uncountable crowd which thronged it.

Necessarily I was kept standing a long time in the press, and, in my
weakened condition, I found my toga more than usually a burden, which is
saying a great deal.

I suppose the toga was a natural enough garment for our ancestors, who
practically wore nothing else, as their