r
station as a nobleman of the Republic, and my ruin and disguise and
flight. I positively enjoyed it.

First of all Colgius was for showing us over the stables of the Reds, for
he was mad about racing and boasted that he had bet on the Reds since he
was six years old and his father gave him his first copper. But I demurred
and pointed out that none of the racing-stables were fit places for us,
since a steady stream of Spanish horses trickled through Marseilles and on
through Vada Sabatia and Genoa to Rome, and there was too great a
probability that we might come face to face with some groom, hostler or
hanger-on from Marseilles who would know us at sight. Colgius yielded to
this argument and agreed that we must avoid all the racing stables. This
greatly relieved us, since, while neither I nor Agathemer had been
devotees of the sport, both of us had been through all six establishments
often enough to be likely to be recognized in any one of them.

Baffled in his first choice and, apparently, in his only choice, Colgius
asked us what we wanted to see. I said I wanted most to see a day of
racing in the circus, blurting out this rather foolish utterance without
reflection, merely because I thought it would seem natural to him. He
replied that that would be easy, but that the next racing day was day
after tomorrow: what would we like to do today?

I said I wanted first of all to be shown the Temple of Mercury, for I
wanted to make an offering to the god.

"Oh, yes," he said, "Mercury is your chief god in Gaul, isn't he, and you
put him ahead of Jupiter. What is it you call him?"

"You are thinking of the Belgians," I said, "and of the Gauls in the
Valley of the Liger. They call Mercury Tiv or Tir and regard him as their
chief god. But we provincials never had any such ideas: we worship the
same gods as you, in the same way. But I, personally, while revering
Jupiter as king of the gods, have always particularly sought the favor of
Mercury."

Off we went to the meat market and I bought there two white hens, as on
the day of my flight, more than a year before. With one under each arm I
then followed Colgius to the Temple of Mercury and there made my prayers
and offering.

When we came out he, of course, began to display the outside of the Great
Circus and to tell me of its glories, which, he said, he would show me
from the inside the day after tomorrow. The life there was much as
Maternus and I had seen it twenty-three