augh:

"Sabina has a wolf's head then!"

"A peacock's would suit her better. Did you see her on her way to the
Caesareum?" replied the other.

"Alas! I did," said the first speaker, but he said no more perceiving,
close behind him, a Roman lictor who bore over his left shoulder his
fasces, a bundle of elmrods skilfully tied together, and who, with
a wand in his right-hand and the assistance of his comrades, was
endeavoring to part the crowd and make room for the chariot of his
master, Titianus, the imperial prefect, which came slowly in the rear.
This high official had overheard the citizens' heedless words, and
turning to the man who stood beside him, while with a light fling he
threw the end of his toga into fresh folds, he said:

"An extraordinary people! I cannot feel annoyed with them, and yet I
would rather walk from here to Canopus on the edge of a knife than on
that of an Alexandrian's tongue."

"Did you hear what the stout man was saying about Verus?"

"The lictor wanted to take him up, but nothing is to be done with them
by violence. If they had to pay only a sesterce for every venomous word,
I tell you Pontius, the city would be impoverished and our treasury
would soon be fuller than that of Gyges at Sardis."

"Let them keep their money," cried the other, the chief architect of the
city, a man of about thirty years of age with highly-arched brows and
eager piercing eyes; and grasping the roll he held in his hand with a
strong grip, he continued:

"They know how to work, and sweat is bitter. While they are busy they
help each other, in idleness they bite each other, like unbroken horses
harnessed to the same pole. The wolf is a fine brute, but if you break
out his teeth he becomes a mangy hound."

"You speak after my own heart," cried the prefect. "But here we are,
eternal gods! I never imagined anything so bad as this. From a distance
it always looked handsome enough!"

Titianus and the architect descended from the chariot, the former
desired a lictor to call the steward of the palace, and then he and his
companion inspected first the door which led into it. It looked fine
enough with its double columns which supported a lofty pediment, but,
all the same, it did not present a particularly pleasing aspect, for the
stucco had, in several places, fallen from the walls, the capitals of
the marble columns were lamentably injured and the tall doors, overlaid
with metal, hung askew on their hinges. Ponti