By spending almost every
moment of daylight on official business, denying himself more than the
merest minimum of sleep and food, he had put every department of the
government sufficiently in order to feel assured of their smooth and
effective operation. His troops were now all outside the City, comfortably
camped, well supplied and content; the City was orderly and its life had
resumed its normal aspect and activities. He felt free to win the regard
of the populace by magnificent exhibitions in the amphitheater, on the
occasion of the eight days of the Games of Apollo, beginning the day
before the Nones of July.
Early next day Narcissus and I were haled from our cell and led, by
passages only too well known to me since my service in the Choragium, to
the iron-gated doorway from which condemned criminals were thrust out into
the arena for the lions or other beasts to tear. From inside that doorway
I could look across the sand of the arena and could see not only the
herald on his tiny platform, elevated above the leap of the most agile
panther, not only the arena-wall opposite me, but also the faces of the
senators in their private boxes on the _podium_, even a portion of the
nobility behind them and of the populace higher up and further back.
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