He was a bald-pated, florid individual, with rough features, a low, flat forehead, and coarse lips.

He was dressed very fashionably, and was perfumed and beringed to an extent that would have been derided anywhere save in the most select circles of Rome.

He was stout, and when he alighted from his carriage, he moved away with a somewhat waddling gait, and lifted up a rasping, high-pitched voice in unsonorous complaint against a slave who let fall a parcel of baggage.
Clearly the master of the house had returned, and all the familia and freedmen bustled about their various tasks with the unusual promptitude and diligence which is the outcome of a healthy fear of retribution for slackness.

Lentulus went into the atrium, and there had an angry conference with the local land-steward, over some accounts which the latter presented.

In fact, so ill was the humour of the noble lord, that Cornelia avoided going out from her room to meet him, and pretended to be so engrossed in her Ennius that she did not hear he had come.
This pretence, however, could not last long.