The Last Days of Pompeii.

Edward Bulwer Lytton.

City destroyed, A.D. August 24, 79. Discovered, 1750.

Characters:

Clodius. When is our next wild-beast fight?

Pausa. It stands fixed for the ninth ide of August. We have a most lovely young lion for the occasion.

C. Whom shall we get for him to eat? Alas! there is a great scarcity of criminals. You must positively find some innocent or other to condemn to the lion, Pausa.

P. Indeed, I have thought very seriously about it of late. It was a most infamous law which forbade us to send our own slaves to the wild beasts. Not to let us do what we like with our own! That’s what I call an infringement on property itself.

C. Not so in the good old days of the Republic.

P. And then this pretended mercy to the slaves is such a disappointment to the poor people. How they do love to see a good tough battle between a man and a lion! And all this innocent pleasure they may lose—if the gods don’t send us a good criminal soon—from this cursed law.

C. What can be worse policy than to interfere with the manly amusements of the people?

P. Well, thank Jupiter and the Fates! We have no Nero at present.

C. He was, indeed, a tyrant. He shut up our amphitheatre for ten years.

P. I wonder it didn’t create a rebellion.

C. As it very nearly did.

Characters:

Sallust. Ah, it is a lustrum since I saw you!

Glaucus. And how have you spent the lustrum? What new dishes have you discovered?

S. I have been scientific, and have made some experiments in the feeding of lampreys. I confess I despair of bringing them to the perfection which our Roman ancestors attained.

G. Miserable man! and why?

S. Because it is no longer lawful to give them a slave to eat. But slaves are not slaves nowadays, and have no sympathy with their masters’ interest, or one of mine would destroy himself to oblige me.

Lepidus. What news from Rome?

S. The emperor has been giving a splendid supper to the senators.

L. He is a good creature. They say he never sends a man away without granting his request.

S. Perhaps he would let me kill a slave for my reservoir?

G. Not unlikely; for he who grants a favor to one Roman must always do it at the expense of another. Be sure that for every smile Titus has caused a hundred eyes have wept.

S. Long live Titus! He has promised my brother a quæstorship because he has run through his fortune.

L. And wishes now to enrich himself among the people.

S. Exactly so.

G. That is putting the people to some use. Well, let us to the baths. This is the time when all the world is there, and Fulvius, whom you admire so much, is going to read us an ode.