noble brothers as to his wife and children, for indeed he owed them much;
and if the service had allowed it he would long since have made his way
to the house of Seleukus to learn how the wounded tribune was faring.
But he had not time even to see his own family, for his younger and
richer comrades, who wanted to enjoy the pleasures of the city, had put
upon him no small share of their own duties. Only this morning a young
soldier of high birth, who had begun his career at the same time as
Martialis, had promised him some tickets of admission to the evening's
performance in the Circus if he would take his duty on guard outside the
amphitheatre. And this offer had been very welcome to the centurion, for
he thus found it possible to give those he loved best, his wife and his
mother, the greatest treat which could be offered to any Alexandrian.
And now, when anything noteworthy was to be seen outside, he only
regretted that he had already some time since conducted them to their
seats in one of the upper rows. He would have liked that they, too,
should have seen the horses and the chariots and the "Blue" charioteer's
turquoises and sapphires; although a decurion observed, as he saw them,
that a Roman patrician would scorn to dress out his person with such
barbaric splendor, and an Alexandrian of the praetorian guard declared
that his fellow-citizens of Greek extraction thought more of a graceful
fold than of whole strings of precious stones.

"But why, then, was this 'Blue' so vehemently hailed by the mob!" asked a
Pannonian in the guard.

"The mob!" retorted the Alexandrian, scornfully. "Only the Syrians and
other Asiatics. Look at the Greeks. The great merchant Seleukus is the
richest of them all, but splendid as his horses, his chariots, and his
slaves are, he himself wears only the simple Macedonian mantle. Though
it is of costly material, who would suspect it? If you see a man