Nemestronia lived almost to her hundredth birthday, in full possession of
her faculties and, until near the end, in marvellously good health. She is
still remembered as having been the oldest noble matron ever known in
Rome.
Like her, Chryseros Philargyrus, though long past the usual term of human
life when my disasters overtook us, survived my nine winters of adventures
and lived to greet me as a son rearisen from the dead, in the tenth summer
after he had sped me on my way in the midnight woods from Ducconius
Furfur's land.
Enough to say that Vedia and I, from a second-floor balcony, watched pass
the triumphal procession of our great Prince of the Republic, Septimius
Severus, when he returned victorious over both his rivals and reentered
Rome, indubitably master of the world.
As to my later life I cannot forbear remarking that I am the only man with
pierced ears who ever mingled as an equal with the bathers in the Baths of
Titus, the only man, certainly, with a brand mark on his shoulder and
scourge-scars on his back who ever habitually frequented that most
magnificent of our fashionable pleasure-resorts. My brand-marks and
scourge-scars have not diminished my enjoyment of life except that they
frequently give bores a pretext for insisting on my narrating my
adventures.
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