ilk-white steeds through the crowded streets.

"Oh! are you there? Where have you hidden yourself for the last month?"
exclaimed Rufus, as he sharply reined up his steeds. "To the Baths of
Caracalla; will you go?"

"Yes, very gladly," said Isidorus, stepping upon the low platform of the
open bronze chariot. "I have been beyond the Po, on a special service--a
barbarous region. No baths, circus, or games like those of Rome."

"There is but one Rome," said the fiery young Hotspur, "but I am
beginning to hate it. I am fairly rusting with idleness and long for
active service--whether amid Libyian sands or Pannonian forests, I care
not."

"It seems to me," replied the effeminate Greek, "that I could console
myself with your horses and chariot--the coursers of Achilles were not
more swift--and with the delights which Rome and its fair dames are
eager to lavish on that favourite of fortune, Ligurius Rufus."

"_Vanitas vanitatis_," yawned the youth. "Life is a tremendous bore. I
was made for action, for conquest, for state craft; but under this
despotism of the C[ae]sars, we are all slaves together. You and I fare a
little better than that Nubian porter yonder, that is all."

"Yet you seem to bear your bondage very comfortably," laughed the
light-hearted Greek, "and had I your fortune, so would I."

"Mehercule! the fetters gall though they be golden," ejaculated the
soldier, lashing his steeds into swifter flight, as if to give vent to
his nervous excitement. "I plunge into folly to forget that I am a
slave. Lost a hundred thousand sesterces at dice last night. The empire
is hurrying to chaos. There are no paths of honour and ambition open to
a man. One must crouch like a hound or crawl like a serpent to win
advancement in the state. I tell you the degenerate Romans of to-day are
an effete and worn out race. The rude Dacians beyond the Tiber possess
more of the hardy virtues of the founders of the Republic than the
craven creatures who crawl about the feet of the modern Colossi, who
bestride the world and are worshipped almost as gods. And unless Rome
mends her ways they will be the masters of the Empire yet."

"One would think you were Cato the Censor," laughed the Greek. "For my
part, I think the best philosophy is that of my wise countryman,
Epicurus--'to take the times as they come, and make the most of them.'
But here we are at the Therm[ae]."

Giving his horses to one of the innumerable grooms belonging to the
es