hat haunt the lives of
tyrants and shedders of innocent blood attend you--attend your persons
so long as ye are doomed to live, and your memory so long as men shall
have power to heap on your names reproach!"

Drusus hardly knew that Antonius had so much as stopped, when he found
his friend leading him out of the Curia.

Behind, all was still as they walked away toward the Temple of Mars.
Then, as they proceeded a little distance, a great roar as of a
distant storm-wind drifted out from the senate-house--so long had
Antonius held his audience spellbound.

"_Finitum est!_" said Curio, his eyes cast on the ground. "We have
seen, my friends, the last day of the Republic."

II

Behind the Temple of Mars the faithful Agias was ready with the
slaves' dresses which were to serve as a simple disguise. Antonius and
his companions tossed off their cumbrous togas and put on the dark,
coarse cloaks and slippers which were worn by slaves and people of the
lower classes. These changes were quickly made, but valuable time was
wasted while Antonius--who, as a bit of a dandy, wore his hair rather
long[147]--underwent a few touches with the shears. It was now
necessary to get across the Tiber without being recognized, and once
fairly out of Rome the chances of a successful pursuit were not many.
On leaving the friendly shelter of the Temple buildings, nothing
untoward was to be seen. The crowds rushing to and fro, from the Curia
and back, were too busy and excited to pay attention to a little group
of slaves, who carefully kept from intruding themselves into notice.
Occasionally the roar and echo of applause and shouting came from the
now distant Curia, indicating that the Senate was still at its unholy
work of voting wars and destructions. A short walk would bring them
across the Pons AEmilius, and there, in the shelter of one of the
groves of the new public gardens which Caesar had just been laying out
on Janiculum, were waiting several of the fastest mounts which the
activity of Agias and the lavish expenditures of Pausanias had been
able to procure.

[147] Slaves were always close clipped.

The friends breathed more easily.

"I hardly think," said Quintus Cassius, "we shall be molested. The
consuls cannot carry their mad hate so far."

They were close to the bridge. The way was lined with tall warehouses
and grain storehouses,[148] the precursors of the modern "elevators."
They could see the tawny Tiber water flashing