Chapter Page

    I. Praeneste 1

   II.  The Upper Walks of Society 21

  III.  The Privilege of a Vestal 37

   IV.  Lucius Ahenobarbus Airs His Grievance 50

    V. A Very Old Problem 73

   VI.  Pompeius Magnus 102

  VII.  Agias’s Adventure 117

 VIII.  “When Greek Meets Greek” 146

   IX.  How Gabinius Met with a Rebuff 159

    X. Mamercus Guards the Door 172

   XI.  The Great Proconsul 198

  XII.  Pratinas Meets Ill-Fortune 217

 XIII.  What Befell at Baiae 241

  XIV.  The New Consuls 262

   XV.  The Seventh of January 277

  XVI.  The Rubicon 302

 XVII.  The Profitable Career of Gabinius 329

XVIII.  How Pompeius Stamped with His Feet 334

  XIX.  The Hospitality of Demetrius 364

   XX.  Cleopatra 387

  XXI.  How Ulamhala’s Words Came True 409

 XXII.  The End of the Magnus 433

XXIII.  Bitterness and Joy 448

 XXIV.  Battling for Life 464

  XXV.  Calm after Storm 496

Chapter I

Praeneste

I

It was the Roman month of September, seven hundred and four years after Romulus—­so tradition ran—­founded the little village by the Tiber which was to become “Mother of Nations,” “Centre of the World,” “Imperial Rome.”  To state the time according to modern standards it was July, fifty years before the beginning of the Christian Era.  The fierce Italian sun was pouring down over the tilled fields and stretches of woodland and grazing country that made up the landscape, and the atmosphere was almost aglow with the heat.  The dust lay thick on the pavement of the highway, and rose in dense, stifling clouds, as a mule, laden with farm produce and driven by a burly countryman, trudged reluctantly along.

Yet, though the scene suggested the heat of midsummer, it was far from being unrefreshing, especially to the eyes of one newly come.  For this spot was near “cool Praeneste,” one of the favourite resorts of Latium to the wealthy, invalid, or indolent of Rome, who shunned the excessive heat of the capital.  And they were wise in their choice; for Praeneste, with its citadel, which rose twelve hundred feet over the adjoining country, commanded in its ample sweep both the views and the breezes of the whole wide-spreading