to compass the destruction of another charioteer. It cost
money to sacrifice a company's teams in that fashion. Such a plot was
never laid to get rid of Palus the jockey; it was aimed at ridding the
nobility of an Emperor they fear and hate, however popular he may be with
the commonality.

"I miss my guess if there is not a violent upheaval in the Blue Company,
and if there is not an investigation scrutinizing the behavior and loyalty
of every man affiliated with them, from their board of managers down to
the stall-cleaners. I prophesy that the informers, spies and secret-
service men will have fat pickings off the Blues for many a day to come.
I'll bet the guilty men are putting their affairs in order now and hunting
safe hiding-places. Commodus may be insane about horse-racing and fool
enough to put a dummy Emperor in his place, so he can be free to enjoy
jockeying, but he is no fool when it comes to attempts at assassination.
He'll run down the guilty or exterminate them among a shoal of innocents."

I agreed.

But I added:

"What is the world coming to when the Prince of the Republic prizes his
privileges so little that he neglects state business for horse-jockeying,
when he is so crazy over charioteering that he lets another man wear his
robes and occupy his throne? It is a mad world."

Next morning we were early on Orontides' ship and once more Agathemer
charmed a crew with his flageolet.

At Ostia Orontides found he must lay over for some valuable packages
consigned to a jeweler at Antioch for the conveyance of which he was
highly paid. He suggested that, as the day was hot for so late in the
year, we go ashore and see the sights which, indeed, we found well worth
seeing, for Ostia has some buildings outmatching anything to be found
outside of Rome. We took his hint, but he warned us:

"I have some sailors I don't trust. Don't leave anything aboard. Take your
wallets with you."

We passed a pleasant, idle day, lunching and taking our siesta at an inn
outside the Rome Gate. We had planned to dine at an inn near the harbor-
front, on the west side of the town, not far from the Sea Gate: there we
had barely sat down and begun tasting the relishes, when in came Clitellus
and Summanus. They seemed surprised and pleased to recognize us, greeted
us as if we had been old friends and close intimates, appeared to assume
that we were as glad to see them as they were to see us, and, as a matter
of course, joined us