or very useful slave could make tolerably sure of being some day emancipated with all due form and ceremony, either during the master’s lifetime or by his last will and testament.  In such a case he became a Roman citizen of the rank known as “freedman,” and after the second generation there was nothing to prevent his descendants from aspiring to any position open to any other Roman.  Sometimes even his son attained to public office.  On attaining his citizenship the freedman became entitled to “the three names,” and it was the rule that he should adopt the family name of his master.  A freedman of Silius is himself a Silius.  Also by preference he will be a Quintus Silius; but he will not be a Bassus.  The third name will still, for his own lifetime, be such as to mark him for what he is.  Moreover, though free, he is himself still bound to pay a dutiful respect to his former master’s family, but beyond this he is at his own disposal and in possession of every right in regard to person and property.  Many such men were extremely skilful in trade and made themselves rich enough to vie with the Roman aristocracy in outward show.  The freedmen of the Emperor, who occupied positions of influence at court as chamberlains, stewards, private secretaries and the like, and were the powers behind the throne, became enormously wealthy.  Their houses were adorned with the finest marble columns, the most richly gilded ceilings, and the most costly works of art; the choicest fruits ripened under glass in their forcing-houses, and, when they died, their monuments were among the most sumptuous by the side of the great highways.  “Freedmen’s wealth” became a proverb.  They were occasionally even appointed to those minor governorships held by “agents” of Caesar, and the Felix of the New Testament was himself a freedman of Nero’s predecessor and brother to one of the richest and most influential of the class.  In the provincial cities of Italy freedmen, though they were not themselves eligible for the ordinary offices, might in return for acts of munificence be admitted to what may be called an inferior grade of knighthood—­a sort of C.M.G.—­styled the “Order of Augustus.”  They thus became notables of their own town in a way of which they were sufficiently proud, as the Pompeian inscriptions show.  It was part of the shrewdness of Augustus to kill two birds with one stone, by erecting a provincial order directly attached to the cult of the Emperor, and by encouraging the local self-made man to spend money liberally upon the embellishment and comfort of his own municipality.

Well, Silius, meeting with or escorted by various slave attendants, passes from the inner rooms through the passage into the hall and finds waiting for him a throng of visitors known as his “clients” or dependants.  The position of these persons is somewhat remarkable.  They are commonly free Roman citizens of the “genteel” middle class, who openly admit that they depend for the bulk