in, with scales and shovel
and the tables of exchange. The chaffering began in corn-shops, where
the lawless agreements for delivery of unsown harvests changed hands ten
times in the hour, and bills on Rome, scrawled over with endorsements,
outsped currency as well as outwitted the revenue men. No tax-farmer's
slave could keep track of the flow of intangible wealth when the bills
for a million sesterces passed to and fro like cards in an Egyptian
game. Men richer than the fabled Croesus carried all their wealth in
leather wallets in the form of mortgages on gangs of slaves,
certificates of ownership of cargoes, promises to pay and contracts for
delivery of merchandise.

Nine-tenths of all the clamor was the voice of slaves, each one of them
an expert in his master's business and often richer than the owners of
the men he dealt with, saving his peculium--the personal savings which
slaves were sometimes encouraged to accumulate--to buy his freedom when
a more than usually profitable deal should put his master in a good
mood.

The hall of the basilica was almost as much a place of fashion as the
baths of Julius Caesar, except that there were some admitted into the
basilica whose presence, later in the day, within the precincts of the
baths would have led to a riot. Whoever had wealth and could afford to
match wits with the sharpest traders in the world might enter the
basilica and lounge amid the statuary. Thither well dressed slaves came
hurrying with contracts and the news of changing prices. There, on
marble benches, spread with colored cushions, at the rear under the
balcony, the richer men of business sat chattering to mask their real
thoughts--Jews, Alexandrians, Athenians--a Roman here and there,
cupidity more frankly written on his face, his eyes a little harder and
less subtle, more abrupt in gesture and less patient with delays.

"That is a tale which is all very well for the slaves to believe, and
for the priests, if they wish, to repeat. As for me, I was born in
Tarsus, where no man in his senses believes anything except a bill of
sale."

"But I tell you, Maternus was scourged, and then crucified at the place
of execution nearest to where he committed his last crime. That is,
where the crossroad leads to Daphne. There is no doubt about that
whatever. He was nearly four days dying, and the sentries stood guard
over him until he ceased to breathe, a little after sunset yesterday
evening. So they