Then I glimpsed, leaning against a pier of the outer arcade of the Circus
Maximus, two men wrapped in dingy cloaks, for the morning had been cool.
After we were in the Temple of Hercules, Maternus asked:
"Did you recognize them?"
"One I had never seen," I replied. "The other I have seen before, but I do
not know who he is nor where I have seen him."
Not until after midnight that night did it suddenly pop into my head that
he was the same man whom I had first seen on horseback in the rain on the
crossroad above Vediamnum, the man whom Tanno had asserted was a
professional informer and accredited Imperial spy, the man who had glanced
into Nemestronia's garden and seen me with Egnatius Capito.
After we left the Temple of Hercules I expected him to conduct me back to
our lodgings for the day. He never suggested it, but kept me with him,
strolling about the central parts of the city as if he had nothing to
fear, walking all round the Colosseum and loitering through the Vicus
Cyprius, frankly amused at the sights we saw there.
He had no difficulty in finding shops of costumers: on the eve of the
Festival they displayed placards calling attention to their wares. The
first we entered had no Praetorian uniforms; but, as if the request for
them were a matter of course, its proprietor directed us to the shop of a
cousin of his who made a specialty of them.
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