e displeasure of Perennis
or of one of his henchmen, or had been suspected, however vaguely, of
actions, words or even of unspoken opinions distasteful to him or to
anyone powerful through him. Acting on that information they had been
setting free the inmates of _ergastula_ in cities through which they had
passed, such as Turin and Milan, and had formed from these victims two
fresh centuries. They proposed that we join them and march with them to
Rome to inform and rescue our Emperor and foil and kill Perennis.

Of course the liberated riffraff accepted this suggestion with enthusiasm
and without a dissenting voice. We were divided into squads of convenient
size and marched off to the near-by bathing establishments. In that to
which Agathemer and I were led, we, with the rest of our squad, were told
by the sergeant superintending us to strip. Our worn, tattered and lousy
garments were turned over to the bath-attendants to be steamed and then
disposed of as they might. We were thoroughly steamed and scrubbed, so
that every man of us was freed from every sort of vermin. During our bath
the centurion, in charge of us unobtrusively inspected us individually and
collectively. In the dressing-room of the bathing establishments, after we
had been steamed, scrubbed, baked, and dried, we were clad in military
tunics fetched from the town arsenal or its store-houses. Also we were
provided with military boots of the coarsest and cheapest materials, made
after the pattern usual for frontier regiments.

Outside the bath the watchful sergeant divided us into two squads, a
larger and a smaller, the smaller made up of those who, like Agathemer and
me, bore brands, and scourge-marks. In the market-square we were again
herded together, surrounded by the British legionaries and now ourselves
divided into those like me and Agathemer, who were marked as runaway
slaves and the larger number who showed no marks of scourge or brand. From
among the unmarked the frontier centurions picked out thirty whom they
judged likely material for sergeants like themselves. These thirty they
bade select from among themselves three. Then they set the three, an
Umbrian and a Ligurian outlaw, and a Dalmatian pirate, along the front of
the stone platform and asked us whether we would accept those three as our
centurions. Two speakers, one a Venetian and the other an Insubrian Gaul,
objected to the pirate. In his place we were bidden to choose some other
from th