he dark words of the philosophers; that even if destruction now
overtook him, death perhaps did not end all; that perhaps they would
meet beyond the grave. Then he took leave of his weeping freedmen and
slaves, and strolled out into the city, and wandered about the Forum
and the Sacred Way, to enjoy, perchance, a last view of the sites that
were to the Roman so dear. Then finally he turned toward the Campus
Martius, and was strolling down under the long marble-paved colonnade
of the Portico of Pompeius. Lost in a deep reverie, he was forgetful
of all present events, until he was roused by a quick twitch at the
elbow; he looked around and found Agias before him.

[143] _Manumissio inter amicos_ was less formal than the regular
ceremony before the praetor.

"_A!_ domine," cried the young Greek, "I have friends in the house of
Lentulus. I have just been told by them that the consul has sworn that
he will begin to play Sulla this very day. Neither you, nor Antonius,
Cassius, Curio, nor the other supporters of Caesar will be alive
to-night. Do not go into the Curia. Get away, quickly! Warn your
friends, and leave Rome, or to-night you will all be strangled in the
Tullianum!"

The Tullianum! Drusus knew no other term to conjure up a like abode of
horrors--the ancient prison of the city, a mere chamber sunk in the
ground, and beneath that a dungeon, accessible only by an opening in
the floor above--where the luckless Jugurtha had perished of cold and
starvation, and where Lentulus Sura, Cethegus, and the other
lieutenants of Catilina had been garroted, in defiance of all their
legal rights, by the arbitrary decree of a rancorous Senate! So at
last the danger had come! Drusus felt himself quiver at every fibre.
He endured a sensation the like of which he had never felt before--one
of utter moral faintness. But he steadied himself quickly. Shame at
his own recurring cowardice overmastered him. "I am an unworthy
Livian, indeed," he muttered, not perhaps realizing that it is far
more heroic consciously to confront and receive the full terrors of a
peril, and put them by, than to have them harmlessly roll off on some
self-acting mental armour.

"Escape! There is yet time!" urged Agias, pulling his toga. Drusus
shook his head.

"Not until the Senate has set aside the veto of the tribunes," he
replied quietly.

"But the danger will then be imminent!"

"A good soldier does not leave his post, my excellent Agias," said the