he more modern Romans imitated that
distinctive attitude, pretending to Augustan calmness that had actually
ceased to be a part of public life. But with Sextus and Norbanus the
inner struggle to be self-controlled was genuine; they bridled
irritation in the same way that they forced their horses to obey them--
captains of their own souls, as it were, and scornful of changefulness.

Sextus, being the only son of a great landowner, and raised in the
traditions of a secluded valley fifty leagues away from Rome, was almost
half a priest by privilege of ancestry. He had been educated in the
local priestly college, had himself performed the daily sacrifices that
tradition imposed on the heads of families and, in his father's frequent
absence, had attended to all the details and responsibilities of
managing a large estate. The gods of wood and stream and dale were very
real to him. The daily offering, from each meal, to the manes of his
ancestors, whose images in wax and wood and marble were preserved in the
little chapel attached to the old brick homestead, had inspired in him a
feeling that the past was forever present and a man's thoughts were as
important as his deeds.

Norbanus, on the other hand, a younger son of a man less amply dowered
with wealth and traditional authority, had other reasons for adopting,
rather than inheriting, an attitude toward life not dissimilar from that
of Sextus. Gods of wood and stream to him meant very little, and he had
not family estates to hold him to the ancient views. To him the future
was more real than the past, which he regarded as a state of ignorance
from which the world was tediously struggling. But inherently he loved
life's decencies, although he mocked their sentimental imitations; and
he followed Sextus--squandered hours with him, neglecting his own
interests (which after all were nothing too important and were well
enough looked after by a Syracusan slave), simply because Sextus was a
manly sort of fellow whose friendship stirred in him emotions that he
felt were satisfying. He was a born follower. His ugly face and rather
mirth-provoking blue eyes, the loose, beautifully balanced seat on
horseback and the cavalry-like carriage of his shoulders, served their
notice to the world at large that he would stick to friends of his own
choosing and for purely personal reasons, in spite of, and in the teeth
of anything.

"As I said," remarked Sextus, "if Pertinax comes--"