epilatores, a lector came in with a bronze tube at his breast and rolls
of paper in the tube.

"Dost wish to listen?" asked Petronius.

"If it is thy creation, gladly!" answered the young tribune; "if not, I
prefer conversation. Poets seize people at present on every street
corner."

"Of course they do. Thou wilt not pass any basilica, bath, library, or
book-shop without seeing a poet gesticulating like a monkey. Agrippa, on
coming here from the East, mistook them for madmen. And it is just such
a time now. Cæsar writes verses; hence all follow in his steps. Only
it is not permitted to write better verses than Cæsar, and for that
reason I fear a little for Lucan. But I write prose, with which,
however, I do not honor myself or others. What the lector has to read
are codicilli of that poor Fabricius Veiento."

"Why 'poor'?"

"Because it has been communicated to him that he must dwell in Odyssa
and not return to his domestic hearth till he receives a new command.
That Odyssey will be easier for him than for Ulysses, since his wife is
no Penelope. I need not tell thee, for that matter, that he acted
stupidly. But here no one takes things otherwise than superficially.
His is rather a wretched and dull little book, which people have begun
to read passionately only when the author is banished. Now one hears on
every side, 'Scandala! scandala!' and it may be that Veiento invented
some things; but I, who know the city, know our patres and our women,
assure thee that it is all paler than reality. Meanwhile every man is