Round the walls of the portico were seats crowded with persons of all ranks; while others, as the regimen of the physicians prescribed, were walking briskly to and fro the portico, stopping every now and then to gaze on the innumerable notices of shows, games, sales, exhibitions, which were painted or inscribed upon the walls.

The general subject of conversation was, however, the spectacle announced in the amphitheatre; and each new-comer was fastened upon by a group eager to know if Pompeii had been so fortunate as to produce some monstrous criminal, some happy case of sacrilege or of murder, which would allow the aediles to provide a man for the jaws of the lion: all other more common exhibitions seemed dull and tame, when compared with the possibility of this fortunate occurrence.
'For my part,' said one jolly-looking man, who was a goldsmith, 'I think the emperor, if he is as good as they say, might have sent us a Jew.' 'Why not take one of the new sect of Nazarenes ?' said a philosopher.

'I am not cruel: but an atheist, one who denies Jupiter himself, deserves no mercy.' 'I care not how many gods a man likes to believe in,' said the goldsmith; 'but to deny all gods is something monstrous.' 'Yet I fancy,' said Glaucus, 'that these people are not absolutely atheists.

I am told that they believe in a God--nay, in a future state.' 'Quite a mistake, my dear Glaucus,' said the philosopher.

'I have conferred with them--they laughed in my face when I talked of Pluto and Hades.' 'O ye gods!' exclaimed the goldsmith, in horror; 'are there any of these wretches in Pompeii ?' 'I know there are a few: but they meet so privately that it is impossible to discover who they are.' As Glaucus turned away, a sculptor, who was a great enthusiast in his art, looked after him admiringly.
'Ah!' said he, 'if we could get him on the arena--there would be a model for you! What limbs! what a head! he ought to have been a gladiator! A subject--a subject--worthy of our art! Why don't they give him to the lion ?' Meanwhile Fulvius, the Roman poet, whom his contemporaries declared immortal, and who, but for this history, would never have been heard of in our neglectful age, came eagerly up to Glaucus.