is race. He and his brother had been carried away as slaves,
first into Asia Minor, and then as they were both particularly pretty
fair-haired boys, to Rome. There they had been bought for the Emperor;
Mastor had been chosen to wait on Hadrian's person, his brother had been
put to work in the gardens. Nothing was lacking to either except his
liberty; nothing tormented them but their longing for their native home,
and even this altogether faded away after he had married the pretty
little daughter of a superintendent of the gardens, a slave like
himself. She was a lively little woman with sparkling eyes, whom no one
could pass by without noticing.

The slave's duties left him but little time to enjoy the society of
his pretty partner and of the two children she bore him, but the
consciousness of possessing them made him happy when he followed his
master to the chase, or in the journeys through the empire. Now, for
seven months he had heard nothing of his family; but a short letter had
reached him at Pelusium, which had been sent with the despatches for the
Emperor from Ostia to Egypt. He could not read, and in consequence of
the Emperor's rapid travelling, it was not till he reached Lochias, that
he was put in possession of its contents.

Before going to rest Antinous had read him the letter, which had been
written for his brother by a public scribe, and its contents were enough
to wreck the heart even of a slave. His pretty little wife had fled from
her home and from the Emperor's service to follow a Greek ship's captain
across the world; his eldest child, a boy, the darling of his heart, was
dead; and his fair-haired tender little Tullia, with her pearly teeth,
her round little arms, and her pretty tiny fingers that had often tried
to pull his close-cropped hair, and had fondly stroked and patted it,
had been carried off to the miserable refuge, under whose squalid roof
the children of deceased slaves were reared. Only two hours since, and
in fancy he had possessed a home, and a group of human beings, whom
he could love. Now, this was all over and with however hard a hand the
deepest woes might fall on him, he might not sob or groan aloud, or even
roll from side to side as again and again he was violently prompted to
do, for his lord slept lightly and the least noise might wake him. At
sunrise he must appear before the Emperor as cheerful as usual, and
yet he felt as if he must himself perish miserably as his happiness