Of her stock farms he said to her:

"I should certainly not have advised any woman to enter upon
such an enterprise, least of all a Vestal. I know of no other member
of our hierarchy who has any similar interests, except Calvaster,
whose haunting of the gladiatorial schools and association with
trainers of gladiators has given some scandal. Some people
would call your horse-breeding unseemly for a Vestal. But I see
no harm in it. I have talked with Causidiena and it is clear that
you do not neglect or skimp your duties, that you give them full
time and close attention. Your leisure is your own to do with as
you please. And your immediate success appears an evidence
that, to say the least, your undertakings give no offence to the gods."

During the latter months of Bambilio's oversight Brinnaria had
felt restive and as if some inward force was forever driving her
to feverish activities; under the care of Lutorius she became
placid and thought less of her stock-raising, journeys to and
fro to her estates, talks with grooms and such like activitie
and devoted herself with more cool ardor to her duties.


CHAPTER XIV - AMAZEMENT



AURELIUS returned from Syria with his victorious army in the
nine hundred and twenty-ninth year of Rome, 176 of our era,
ten years after the great pestilence. He had merely crushed a
local rebellion, but a vast coalition of nomadic Arab tribes of