Accordingly they went into the bower on the landing overlooking the garden, and Crispina told them the news.
In the first place, she told them that the emperor's expected visit to Formiæ was delayed on account of the state of his health. It was now thought he would not arrive for two or three days more, whereas he was to have entered Formiæ that very morning. Crispina added, that it would not surprise her if he did not come for a week yet.
In the second place, Queen Berenice with her son, Herod Agrippa, and her daughter Herodias, who were to have occupied those very apartments, had arrived at the inn, but had now gone forward.
"Mother," said Agatha, "those must have been the persons who, an hour ago, looked into the arbor below this one, when that pale woman was talking to me. The elder called the younger Herodias."
"The same," continued the landlady. "Finding that they cannot be accommodated in my house, young Herod has proposed to proceed with all their train to Formiæ, where—royal though they be—they will be nobody's guests; and as there is not a place of public entertainment in that town, and the weather is delightful, he says they will pitch two or three tents, and one splendid pavilion of silk, on the verge of the green space outside of Formiæ, where the games are to be held."
"Only fancy!" cried Agatha, clapping her little hands.
Thirdly, Crispina told them, with fifty gossiping details, that the entertainments to be given in honor of the emperor and the opulent knight Mamurra, from whom the town took its name, would be stupendous. Formiæ, we may mention, was frequently called Mamurrarum, or urbs mamurrana, from the colonel or chiliarch Mamurra. This gentleman had devoted his boyhood and youth to the cause of Julius Cæsar, and afterward of Augustus in the civil wars; had gained considerable military reputation, and, above all, had amassed enormous wealth.
He had long since returned to his native Formiæ, where he had built a superb palace of marble, good enough for an emperor. In that palace the emperor was now to be his guest. He and Agrippa Vipsanius, the founder of the Pantheon, had long before been among those by whom, in compliance with the often-announced wish of Augustus, not peculiarly addressed to them, but generally to all his wealthy countrymen, Augustus had expended incalculable sums in adorning Rome with public edifices, for which costly materials, and the science and taste of the best architects, had alike been employed. As Augustus himself said, (for himself,) "They had found it of bricks, and were leaving it of marble."
"I have read verses by Catullus upon this knight Mamurra," said Aglais.
"So you have, my lady," replied Crispina. "Well, he has just knocked up a circus in the fields adjoining Formiæ, and is preparing to exhibit magnificent shows to his neighbors and to all comers, in honor of the emperor's visit to the town of the Mamurras and the Mamurran palace. Tiberius Cæsar, who is also to be the knight's guest, promises to use this same circus, and to give entertainments of his own there, and Germanicus Cæsar, before marching north to fight the Germans, and drive them out of north-eastern Italy, is to review at Formiæ the troops destined for that expedition, as well as the great bulk of the prætorian guards under Sejanus. The guards are uncertain what portion of them the Cæsar may take with him northward."