The _Villicus_ went on to say that this fell out very advantageously for
me, in his opinion. He advised me not only to go with the procurator
without demur, but to arrange with him that I drop the name of Felix and
adopt some other. He pointed out that, if it was known that Felix the
Horse-wrangler of Umbria had gone to Rome as Felix the Beast-Tamer, then
the King of the Highwaymen would be able without difficulty to trace me
and set on me his ruthless agents until one of them assassinated me.
I felt that he was right. The danger to my former self as Andivius
Hedulio, implicated in a conspiracy against Caesar, appeared now far off
and unimportant, in spite of the fact that the secret service might still
be keen to catch me and the hue and cry out after me from the Alps to
Rhegium; the danger to my present self from the enmity of Bulla, of his
ruffians, of their partisans in Umbria, of their Chief, the King of the
Highwaymen, whoever he might be, appeared close and menacing. A change of
name would make it impossible for Tanno and Vedia to carry out her plan
for my manumission by the _fiscus_, my clandestine journey to Bruttium and
my comfortable and unsuspected seclusion there until some other prince
succeeded our present Emperor.
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