When Casca and Anna were left alone together, Anna said—
“We must not be seen together in the public streets; therefore, dear young master, I will depart first, and you can follow. The quarter where the Jews live is below the hill, and I reach it by a side path.”
“Are you happy with that old man, Ebba? Is he good to you?”
“Yes, at times,” was the answer. “He mourns for his lost Rachel and his lost treasure. The name of Christian is scarcely less hated by the Jews than by the heathen, and I live a secluded life with Ezra. But he has taught me much of the words of the old prophets and sibyls in whom he believes, who worshipped the God of Israel, and I have learned to sing some of the songs written by one of their kings to the praise of Jehovah. And now we part till the evening, when I will conduct you to the place where you shall hear much which my poor tongue cannot tell. But be wary, for the eyes of many are upon all who are suspected of being Christians.”
In another moment Anna had glided away, and Casca was left alone.
A new life was beginning for the boy that day; he was to exchange the toga prætexta for the toga virilis—the boy’s garment for the man’s—a sign of manhood which the Romans looked upon as imperative.
Before that bright day had closed, Casca had bidden Clœlia farewell, and, with a heavy heart, had committed his books and parchments to two slaves from Antonius’s household, who had arrived for them about noon.
Then he penned a dutiful epistle to his father, which would be despatched by the next special messenger who might be sent on official business from Rome to her distant province of Britain, and prepared himself for his fresh start in the palace of Antonius.
It is very hard for us to realise the events of the fourth century, and any picture of those times, and of the men and women who took part in the scenes then enacted, must, at the best, be shadowy. To the eye of the casual observer, Rome, seated on her seven hills, under the sway of the Emperor Diocletian, was at the zenith of fame and prosperity.
The throngs in the Forum—the gay crowds in the gardens of Circus Maximus, the race-course, the arena—all told of wealth and prosperity and pleasure. But this very love of show and outward grandeur, this excessive devotion to the indulgence of every selfish desire, was sapping the foundation of the great empire, and its decline had even then set in.