But after a certain time he spoke, and opened his eyes; he inquired
about the weather, and then about gems which the jeweller Idomeneus had
promised to send him for examination that day. It appeared that the
weather was beautiful, with a light breeze from the Alban hills, and
that the gems had not been brought. Petronius closed his eyes again,
and had given command to bear him to the tepidarium, when from behind
the curtain the nomenclator looked in, announcing that young Marcus
Vinicius, recently returned from Asia Minor, had come to visit him.

Petronius ordered to admit the guest to the tepidarium, to which he was
borne himself. Vinicius was the son of his oldest sister, who years
before had married Marcus Vinicius, a man of consular dignity from the
time of Tiberius. The young man was serving then under Corbulo against
the Parthians, and at the close of the war had returned to the city.
Petronius had for him a certain weakness bordering on attachment, for
Marcus was beautiful and athletic, a young man who knew how to preserve
a certain aesthetic measure in his profligacy; this, Petronius prized
above everything.

"A greeting to Petronius," said the young man, entering the tepidarium
with a springy step. "May all the gods grant thee success, but
especially Asklepios and Kypris, for under their double protection
nothing evil can meet one."

"I greet thee in Rome, and may thy rest be sweet after war," replied
Petronius, extending his hand from between the folds of soft karbas
stuff in which he was wrapped. "What's to be heard in Armenia; or since
thou wert in Asia, didst thou not stumble into Bithynia?"

Petronius on a time had been proconsul in Bithynia, and, what is more,