as motionless as if
they too were holding breath in their breasts.

All at once the silence was broken by an unexpected thunder, deep, and
as if coming from under the earth. A shiver ran through Lygia's body.
Vinicius stood up, and said,--"Lions are roaring in the vivarium."

Both began to listen. Now the first thunder was answered by a second,
a third, a tenth, from all sides and divisions of the city. In Rome
several thousand lions were quartered at times in various arenas, and
frequently in the night-time they approached the grating, and, leaning
their gigantic heads against it, gave utterance to their yearning for
freedom and the desert. Thus they began on this occasion, and, answering
one another in the stillness of night, they filled the whole city with
roaring. There was something so indescribably gloomy and terrible in
those roars that Lygia, whose bright and calm visions of the future were
scattered, listened with a straitened heart and with wonderful fear and
sadness.

But Vinicius encircled her with his arm, and said,--"Fear not, dear one.
The games are at hand, and all the vivaria are crowded."

Then both entered the house of Linus, accompanied by the thunder of
lions, growing louder and louder.

Chapter XL

IN Antium, meanwhile, Petronius gained new victories almost daily
over courtiers vying with him for the favor of Caesar. The influence of
Tigellinus had fallen completely. In Rome, when there was occasion to
set aside men who seemed dangerous, to plunder their property or to
settle political cases, to give spectacles astounding by their luxury
and bad taste, or finally to satisfy the monstrous whims of
Caesar, Tigellinus, as adroit, as he was ready for anything, became
indispensable. But in Antium, among palaces reflected in the azure of
the sea, Caesar led a Hellenic existence. From morning till evening
Nero and his attendants read verses, discoursed on their structure and
finish, were delighted with happy turns of expression, were occupied
with music, the theatre,--in a word, exclusively with that which Grecian
genius had invented, and with which it had beautified life. Under these
conditions Petronius, incomparably more refined than Tigellinus and
the other courtiers,--witty, eloquent, full of subtile feelings and
tastes,--obtained pre-eminence of necessity. Caesar sought his society,
took his opinion, asked for advice when he composed, and showed a
more lively friendship than at any ot