It happened that just within a few days the disputes regarding the festival that was to be held in honor of the Imperial visit had added bitterness to the old grudge, and thus it came to pass that Apollodorus’ unlighted house in the Canopic way had excited the populace to attack this palatial residence. And here again one single speech had sufficed to excite their fury.
In the first instance Melampus, the tanner, a drunken swaggerer, who had failed in business, had marched up the street at the head of a tipsy crew, and pointing with his thyrsus to the dark, undecorated house, had shouted:
“Look at that dismal barrack! All that the Jew used to spend on decorating the street, he is saving up now in his money chest!” The words were like a spark among tinder and others followed.
“The niggard is robbing our father Dionysus,” cried a second citizen, and a third, flourishing his torch on high, croaked out:
“Let us get at the drachmae he grudges the god; we can find a use for them.” Graukus, the sausage maker, snatched from his neighbor’s hand the bunch of tow soaked in pitch, and bellowed out, “I advise that we should burn the house over their heads!”
“Stay, stay,” cried a cobbler who worked for Apollodorus’ slaves, as he placed himself in the butcher’s way. “Perhaps they are mourning for some one in there. The Jew has always decorated his house on former occasions.”
“Not they,” replied a flute-player in a loud hoarse voice. “We met the old miser’s son on the Bruchiom with some riotous comrades and misconducted hussies, with his purple mantle fluttering far behind him.”
“Let us see which is reddest, the Tyrian stuff or the blaze we shall make if we set the old wretch’s house on fire,” shouted a hungry-looking tailor, looking round to see the effects of his wit.
“Ay! let us try!” rose from one man, and then, from a number of others:
“Let us get into the house!”