d, without covering to his head, under the burning rays of the
sun, not knowing which way he went, and retracing his steps, as he
wandered about at random, with a vague notion he was going homewards. The
few persons whom he met, creeping about under the shadow of the lofty
houses, or under the porticoes of the temples, looked at him with wonder,
and thought him furious or deranged. The shafts of the sun were not so hot
as his own thoughts, or as the blood which shot to and fro so fiercely in
his veins; but they were working fearfully on his physical frame, though
they could not increase the fever of his mind. He had come to the Forum;
the market people were crouching under their booths or the shelter of
their baskets. The riffraff of the city, who lived by their wits, or by
odd jobs, or on the windfalls of the market; lazy fellows who did nothing,
who did not move till hunger urged them, like the brute; half-idiotic
chewers of opium, ragged or rather naked children, the butcher boys and
scavengers of the temples, lay at their length at the mouth of the caverns
formed by the precipitous rock, or under the Arch of Triumph, or amid the
columns of the Gymnasium and the Heracleum, or in the doorways of the
shops. A scattering of beggars were lying, poor creatures, on their backs
in the blazing sun, reckless of the awful maladies, the fits, the
seizures, and the sudden death, which might be the consequence.

Numbers out of this mixed multitude were asleep; some were looking with
dull listless eyes at the still scene, or at any accidental movements
which might vary it. They saw a figure coming nearer and nearer and wildly
passing by. Just then Agellius was diverted from his painful meditations
by hearing one of these fellows say to another, as he roused from a sort
of doze, "That's one of them. We know them all, but very poor pickings can
be got out of them; but he has more than most. They're a low set in
Sicca." And then the man cried out, "Look sharp, young chap! the Furies
are at your heels, and the Fates are going before you. Look there at the
emperor; he is looking at you, as grim and sour as you could wish him." He
spoke of the equestrian statue of Severus before the Basilica on the
right; and, attracted by his words, Agellius went up to a board which was
fixed to its base. It was an imperial edict, and it ran as follows:--

"Cneius Trajanus Decius, Augustus; and Quintus Herennius Etruscus Decius,
Caesar; Emperors, unconq