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resentment in every line of his squat figure.
    “He has come, stamping on his heels as though he owned everything,” he said. “It was different once! He would come to me then and whisper out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Help me in this, Castor,’ or ‘Get me those papers which came from the warehouses today when my brother is through with them.’ He was like a cat with butter on his paws. When he came in just now, he stared at me and gave that grunt of his. ‘You will be taking my orders, O once mighty Castor,’ he said. ‘Put away that whip because I am going to rule by the bastinado. How sensitive are the soles of
your
feet, my Castor?’ ” The major-domo stopped abruptly, as though realizing the danger to which he might be exposing himself with his frankness. He nodded to Basil in as friendly a manner as he dared assume. “You are wanted at once.”
    The new head of the
gens
was sitting in his brother’s chair when the dispossessed heir entered the circular room. His head, which had once been covered with a thatch of tight-curling reddish hair, had been shaved as a sign of mourning, and it had something of the look of a ripe squash. Because of the heat of the day he had drawn the skirt of his tunic up around his hips, and his fat bare legs were spread out in front of him. There was a triumphant and malicious glitter in his pinkish-red eyes.
    “You have been sold,” he announced. “To Sosthene of Tarsus, the silversmith.”
    Basil had been expecting some such announcement and he was not much disturbed. Being sent back to the Ward of the Trades might be better than remaining here. He could detect sounds of activity in the room back of him, which the secretary occupied. “Quintus has lost notime in changing sides,” he thought. “I wish him joy of his new master.” He was fully aware, nevertheless, that the fault did not rest on the shoulders of that capable young Roman but on his own.
    “This knack of yours”—there was a slighting edge to the voice of Linus —“gave you some small value. I drove as good a bargain as I could, but in spite of that I got little enough for you. You will go to your master at once. I don’t want you here a moment longer than is necessary, so be on your way, my once proud Ambrose, son of the laziest seller of pens in all Antioch.”
    “The Romans would crucify me if I killed him now,” said Basil to himself. “I must swallow everything he says—and wait.”
    “You understand, don’t you, that you have no possessions now? Take nothing with you but the clothes you wear. I would strip you to the skin and send you on your way in sackcloth, but if I did there would be people to find fault with me. The tools you used and the trinkets you made are no longer yours. They belong here. They have been collected and put away.”
    “They are mine!” Basil looked up at the new master of the household for the first time. “I know something of the law and I can prove——”
    Linus threw back his head and let out a loud guffaw. “So you want more of the law, do you? More of Marius Antonius? You stupid ox, get yourself gone before I invoke the law myself. A slave has no rights in a Roman court. I think your stupidity exceeds your pride.” He raised one broad sleeve of his tunic and wiped the perspiration from his brow. “I give you a word of warning. You are not to see any members of this family. Most particularly, you are not to talk to the lady Persis. You must not communicate with her in any way. Is that clear in your mind, slave? If you come here on any excuse, I shall have you beaten and driven away like a thief!”

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER I

1
    F OR TWO YEARS the Great Colonnade, with its four rows of pillars like Roman soldiers on parade, had cut Basil off from everything that seemed worth while in life. He lived in the Street of the Silversmiths, which was narrow and turgid and filled at all hours with chaffering and expostulation. Here he sat at a rear window, in a