“Was he my kinsman’s slave; are you sure, Myrrhina?” said her mistress, in an accent of studied unconcern, and never moving a finger from her listless and comfortable attitude.
“No doubt of it, madam,” replied the waiting‐maid; and would probably have continued to enlarge on the congenial subject, had she not been interrupted by the entrance of one of the damsels who had been summoned from the apartment, and returned to announce that Hippias, the retired gladiator, was in waiting—“Would Valeria take her fencing‐lesson?”
But Valeria declined at once, and sat on before her mirror, without even raising her eyes to the tempting picture it displayed. Whatever was the subject of her thoughts, it must have been very engrossing, she seemed so loth to be disturbed.
Meanwhile the British slave, unconscious that he was already the object of Valeria’s interest and Myrrhina’s admiration, was threading his way through the crowded streets that adjoined the Forum, enjoying that vague sense of amusement with which a man surveys a scene of bustle and confusion that does not affect his immediate concerns. Thanks to the favour of his master, his time was nearly at his own disposal, and he had ample leisure to observe the busiest scene in the known world, and to compare it, perhaps, with the peace and simplicity of those early days, which seemed now like the memories of a dream, so completely had they passed away. The business of the Forum was over: the markets were disgorging their mingled stream of purveyors, purchasers, and idle lookers‐on. The whole population of Rome was hurrying home to dinner, and a motley crowd it was. The citizens themselves, the Plebeians, properly so called, scarcely formed one half of the swarming assemblage. Slaves innumerable hurried to and fro, to speed the business or the pleasure of their lords; slaves of every colour and of every nation, from the Scandinavian giant, with blue eyes and waving yellow locks, to the sturdy Ethiopian, thick‐lipped, and woolly‐haired, the swarthy child of Africa, whose inheritance has been servitude from the earliest ages until now. Many a Roman born was there, too, amongst the servile crowd, aping the appearance and manner of a citizen, but who shrank from a master’s frown at home, and who, despite the acquirement of wealth, and even the attainment of power, must die a bondsman as he had lived.