Leaving the Vanno palace, Ænone joined herself to this moving concourse. At her side walked one of her bondwomen, and, at a pace or two behind, properly attired, and armed only with a short sword, strode the armor bearer. Thus attended, she pressed forward along the Appian Way toward the outskirts of the city—past broad palaces and villas, with encircling gardens and open paved courts—past shrubberies, fish ponds, and statue-crowned terraces—past public baths, through whose broad doorways the people swarmed by hundreds, and whose steps were thronged with waiting slaves; now stopping until the armor bearer, running to the front, could make a passage for her through some crowd denser than ordinary—then gliding onward with more rapid pace, as the way became clearer—and again arresting herself for a moment as the stream of people also tarried to watch the approach of the gorgeous chariot and richly uniformed guards of the emperor Titus Vespasian. At length, turning the corner of a pillar-porticoed temple, which stood back from the street, and up the gentle ascent of whose steps a concourse of priests and attendants were forcing a garland-decked bullock, unconscious of the sacrificial rites which awaited him within, she stood beyond the surging of the crowd and in a quiet little street.
It was a narrow avenue, in whose humble architecture brick took the place of stone; but by no means mean or filthy, like so many of the streets of similar width in the central portion of the city. Stretching out toward the open country, and not given up to merchandise or slave quarters, its little houses had their gardens and clustering vines about them, supplying with the picturesque whatever was wanting in magnificence, and evidencing a pleasant medium between wealth and poverty. The paved roadway was clean and unbroken; and far down as the eye could reach no life could be seen, except a single slave with a fruit basket balanced upon his head, and near him a group of children at play.
Passing down this street, Ænone came to a spot where one of the great aqueducts which supplied the city, crossed the roadway diagonally with a single span. At the right hand stood a small brick house, built into the nearest arch so snugly that it seemed as though its occupants could almost hear the gurgling of the water flowing overhead from the hills of Albanus. Like the other houses in its neighborhood, it had a small courtyard in front, planted with a shrub or two. This was the home of her father, the centurion Porthenus. Stopping here, she was about to enter without warning, according to her usual custom, but as she advanced, a dwarf, whom she recognized as the same which that morning had so eagerly presented himself for notice in the front of her husband's captives, sprang forward, grinned his recognition of the armor bearer, made another grimace expressive of mingled respect and admiration for herself, threw open the door, and ushered her in with an outburst of ceremonious pride befitting an imperial reception.
At a back window of the house, from whence the line of aqueduct could be seen for some distance leaping houses and streets in its undeviating course to the centre of the city, sat the centurion. He was a man of medium height, short necked, and thick set, with blunted features and grizzled hair and beard. Two of the fingers of his left hand were wanting, and a broad scar, the trophy of a severe skirmish among the Alemanni, crossed his right cheek and one side of his nose, giving him an expression more curious than pleasing. His general appearance was after the common type of an old, war-worn soldier, rough and unscrupulous by nature, hardened by camp life and dissipation, grown cruel by excess of petty authority, overbearing with his inferiors, jovial and complaisant with his equals, cringing to his superiors, and with an air of discontent overlaying every other expression, as though he was continually tortured with the belief that his success in life had not equalled his merits. As Ænone entered, he was bending over a shield, and earnestly engaged in burnishing its brazen mouldings. At his side leaned a short sword, awaiting similar attention, and in a rack beside him were a number of weapons of different varieties and sizes, which had already submitted to his restorative skill, and now shone like glass.
Hearing her light step, he looked up, arose, flung the shield into a corner, and, with a roar, as though ordering a battalion, called out to the grinning dwarf, who had followed her in:
"Ho there, ape! A seat for my daughter, the wife of the imperator Sergius Vanno!"
The dwarf sprang forward and dragged out a seat for her; having done which, he seemed about to yield to his curiosity and remain. But the centurion, disapproving of such freedom, made a lunge at him with the small sword, before which the dwarf retired with a precipitate leap, and joined the bondwoman and armor bearer outside. Then the father, being left alone with his daughter, embraced her, and uttered such words of welcome as his rough nature suggested.
As regarded his intercourse with her, perhaps the most noticeable traits were the mingled reverence and familiarity with which he treated her. It seemed as though he was actuated by an ever-pervading consciousness that her exalted position demanded the observance of the deepest respect toward her; but that this feeling was connected in his mind with an unceasing struggle to remember that, after all, she was his own child, and as such was not entitled to any undue consideration from him. Upon the present occasion, he first timidly touched her cheek with his lips and uttered a gentle and almost courtly salutation; but immediately recollecting himself, and appearing to become impressed with the belief that his unwitting deference was unworthy of the character of a father, he proceeded to atone for the mistake by a rough and discomposing embrace, and such a familiar and frolicksome greeting as none but a camp follower would have felt flattered with. Then, seating himself before her, he commenced his conversation in a rude and uncouth tone, and with rather a forced affectation of military bluntness; from which, however, as his eye dwelt upon the richness of her apparel and his mind began to succumb to the charm of her native refinement, he gradually and unconsciously subsided, in turn, into his former soft and deferential manner.
'And so the imperator Sergius Vanno has returned,' he said, rolling upon his tongue, with evident satisfaction, that high-sounding title—once the acknowledged appellation of a conqueror, but now claimed as a right by the imperial line alone, and no longer elsewhere bestowed except as an informal and transitory compliment. 'It was a splendid ovation, and well earned by a glorious campaign. There is no one in all the Roman armies who could have managed it better.'
Nevertheless, with unconscious inconsistency, he immediately began to show wherein the campaign could have been improved, and how many gross mistakes were visible in every portion of it—how the force of Mutius should have been diverged more in advancing inland—how, in the battle along the shore, the three-oared galleys of Agricola should have been drawn up to support the attack—the consequence of this omission, if the leading cohort had met with a repulse—and the like. All this he marked out upon the floor with a piece of coal, taking but little heed that Ænone could not follow him; and step by step, in the ardor of criticism, he advanced so far that he was soon ready to prove that the campaign had been most wofully misconducted, and was only indebted to accident for success.