is raven hair in long and flowing curls, which hung quite down
upon his shoulders--a fashion that was held in Rome to the last degree
effeminate, indeed almost infamous--while his trim whiskers and close curly
beard reeked with the richest perfumes, impregnating the atmosphere
through which he passed with odors so strong as to be almost overpowering.

His garb was that of a patrician of the highest order; though tinctured,
like the arrangement of his hair, with not a little of that soft luxurious
taste which had, of latter years, begun so generally to pervade Rome's
young nobility. His under dress or tunic, was not of that succinct and
narrow cut, which had so well become the sturdy fathers of the new
republic! but--beside being wrought of the finest Spanish wool of snowy
whiteness, with the broad crimson facings indicative of his senatorial
rank, known as the laticlave--fell in loose folds half way between his knee
and ancle.

It had sleeves, too, a thing esteemed unworthy of a man--and was fringed at
the cuffs, and round the hem, with a deep passmenting of crimson to match
the laticlave. His toga of the thinnest and most gauzy texture, and whiter
even than his tunic, flowed in a series of classical and studied draperies
quite to his heels, where like the tunic it was bordered by a broad
crimson trimming. His feet were ornamented, rather than protected, by
delicate buskins of black leather, decked with the silver _sigma_, in its
old crescent shape, the proud initial of the high term senator. A golden
bracelet, fashioned like a large serpent, exquisitely carved with horrent
scales and forked tail, was twined about the wrist of his right arm, with
a huge carbuncle set in the head, and two rare diamonds for eyes. A dozen
rings gemmed with the clearest brilliants sparkled upon his white and
tapering fingers; in which, to complete the picture, he bore a
handkerchief of fine Egyptian cambric, or Byssus as the Romans styled it,
embroidered at the edges in arabesques of golden thread.

His comrade was if possible more slovenly in his attire than his friend
was luxurious and expensive. He wore no toga, and his tunic--which, without
the upper robe, was the accustomed dress of gladiators, slaves, and such
as were too poor to wear the full and characteristic attire of the Roman
citizen--was of dark brownish woollen, threadbare, and soiled with spots of
grease, and patched in many places. His shoes were of coarse clouted
leather,