any foe, but before their own guilty
consciences; abandoning the city of their fathers when not a sword had
flashed against her gates! The war had been of their making; to send
Caesar into outlawry the aristocracy had laboured ten long years. And
now the noble lords were exiles, wanderers among the nations. To Capua
they went, to find small comfort there, and thence to join Pompeius in
further flight beyond the seas to Greece. But we anticipate. Enough
that neither Lentulus Crus, nor Domitius, nor Cato, nor the great
Magnus himself, ever saw Rome again.

II

Agias stood in a shop by the Sacred Way watching the stream of
fugitives pouring down toward the Porta Capena. At his side was a
person whom a glance proclaimed to be a fellow-Greek. The stranger was
perhaps fifty, his frame presented a faultless picture of symmetry and
manly vigour, great of stature, the limbs large but not ungainly. His
features were regular, but possessed just enough prominence to make
them free from the least tinge of weakness. The Greek's long, thick,
dark but grey-streaked beard streamed down upon his breast; his hair,
of similar hue, was long, and tossed back over his shoulders in loose
curls. His dress was rich, yet rude, his chiton and cloak short, but
of choice Milesian wool and dyed scarlet and purple; around his neck
dangled a very heavy gold chain set with conspicuously blazing jewels.
The ankles, however, were bare, and the sandals of the slightest and
meanest description. The stranger must once have been of a light, not
to say fair, complexion; but cheeks, throat, arms, and feet were all
deeply bronzed, evidently by prolonged exposure to wind and weather.
Agias and his companion watched the throng of panic-struck exiles. The
younger Greek was pointing out, with the complacency of familiar
knowledge, the names and dignities of the illustrious fugitives.

"Yonder goes Cato," he was saying; "mark his bitter scowl! There goes
Marcus Marcellus, the consular. There drives the chariot of Lucius
Domitius, Caesar's great enemy." And Agias stopped, for his friend had
seized his arm with a sudden grasp, crushing as iron. "Why, by all
the gods, Demetrius, why are you staring at him that way?"

"By Zeus!" muttered the other, "if I had only my sword! It would be
easy to stab him, and then escape in this crowd!"

"Stab him!" cried Agias. "Demetrius, good cousin, control yourself.
You are not on the deck of your trireme, with all your men abo