It had been the banking clerk's misfortune, not his fault, that every man's hand had been against him and his against every man.
Demetrius had been declared an outlaw to Roman authority; and Roman authority at that time stretched over very nearly every quarter of the civilized world.

Demetrius had been to India, to intercept the Red Sea traders.

He had been beyond the Pillars of Hercules and set foot on those then half-mythical islands of the Canaries.

He had plundered a hundred merchantmen; he had fought a score of Roman government galleys; he had been principal or accessory to the taking of ten thousand lives.

All this had been forced upon him, because there was no tolerable spot on the planet where he might settle down and be free from the grasp of punishment for a crime he had never committed.
Demetrius had boldly come up to Rome on a light undecked yacht.[158] The harbor masters had been given to understand that the captain of the craft was an Asiatic princeling, who was visiting the capital of the world out of a quite legitimate curiosity.