give command to open a butcher's stall on the Carinæ!"

And he walked out of the atrium. But through the whole house,
ornamented in the green of ivy and prepared for a feast, were heard,
from moment to moment, groans and the whistling of whips, which lasted
almost till morning.




Chapter XI

VINICIUS did not lie down that night. Some time after the departure of
Petronius, when the groans of his flogged slaves could allay neither his
rage nor his pain, he collected a crowd of other servants, and, though
the night was far advanced, rushed forth at the head of these to look
for Lygia. He visited the district of the Esquiline, then the Subura,
Vicus Sceleratus, and all the adjoining alleys. Passing next around the
Capitol, he went to the island over the bridge of Fabricius; after that
he passed through a part of the Trans-Tiber. But that was a pursuit
without object, for he himself had no hope of finding Lygia, and if he
sought her it was mainly to fill out with something a terrible night.
In fact he returned home about daybreak, when the carts and mules of
dealers in vegetables began to appear in the city, and when bakers were
opening their shops.

On returning he gave command to put away Gulo's corpse, which no one had
ventured to touch. The slaves from whom Lygia had been taken he sent to
rural prisons,--a punishment almost more dreadful than death. Throwing
himself at last on a couch in the atrium, he began to think confusedly