No more words were exchanged--the master buried in deep thought, the
servant stupified with grief and terror--until they reached the house of
Paullus, in a fair quarter of the town, near to the street of Carinae, the
noblest and most sumptuous in Rome.

A dozen slaves appeared within the hall, awaiting the return of their
young lord, but he dismissed them all; and when they had departed, taking
a small night lamp, and ordering Thrasea to waken him betimes to-morrow,
that he might see the consul, he bade him be of good cheer, for that
Medon's death should surely be avenged, since the gay dagger would prove a
clue to the detection of his slayer. Then, passing into his own chamber,
he soon lost all recollection of his hopes, joys, cares, in the sound
sleep of innocence and youth.

CHAPTER IV

THE CONSUL.

Therefore let him be Consul; The Gods give
Him joy, and make him good friend to the people.
CORIOLANUS.

The morning was yet young, when Paullus Arvina, leaving his mansion on the
Caelian hill by a postern door, so to avoid the crowd of clients who even
at that early hour awaited his forth-coming in the hall, descended the
gentle hill toward the splendid street called Carinae, from some fanciful
resemblance in its shape, lying in a curved hollow between the bases of
the Esquiline, Caelian, and Palatine mounts, to the keel of a galley.

This quarter of the city was at that time unquestionably the most
beautiful in Rome, although it still fell far short of the magnificence it
afterward attained, when the favourite Mecaenas had built his splendid
palace, and laid out his unrivalled gardens, on the now woody Esquiline;
and it would have been difficult indeed to conceive a view more sublime,
than that which lay before the eyes of the young patrician, as he paused
for a moment on the highest terrace of the hill, to inhale the breath of
the pure autumnal morning.

The sun already risen, though not yet high in the east, was pouring a
flood of mellow golden light, through the soft medium of the half misty
atmosphere, over the varied surface of the great city, broken and
diversified by many hills and hollows; and bringing out the innumerable
columns, arches, and aqueducts, that adorned almost every street and
square, in beautiful relief.

The point at which the young man stood, looking directly northward, was
one which could not be excelled, if it indeed could be equalled for