Ye may also have heard of the Chersonesan pirates, nested up in the Euxine; none bolder, by the Bacchae! Yesterday word came to Rome that, with a fleet, they had rowed down the Bosphorus, sunk the galleys off Byzantium and Chalcedon, swept the Propontis, and, still unsated, burst through into the Aegean.

The corn-merchants who have ships in the East Mediterranean are frightened.

They had audience with the Emperor himself, and from Ravenna there go to-day a hundred galleys, and from Misenum"-- he paused as if to pique the curiosity of his friends, and ended with an emphatic--"one." "Happy Quintus! We congratulate thee!" "The preferment forerunneth promotion.

We salute thee duumvir; nothing less." "Quintus Arrius, the duumvir, hath a better sound than Quintus Arrius, the tribune." In such manner they showered him with congratulations.
"I am glad with the rest," said the bibulous friend, "very glad; but I must be practical, O my duumvir; and not until I know if promotion will help thee to knowledge of the tesserae will I have an opinion as to whether the gods mean thee ill or good in this--this business." "Thanks, many thanks!" Arrius replied, speaking to them collectively.
"Had ye but lanterns, I would say ye were augurs.

Perpol! I will go further, and show what master diviners ye are! See--and read." From the folds of his toga he drew a roll of paper, and passed it to them, saying, "Received while at table last night from--Sejanus." The name was already a great one in the Roman world; great, and not so infamous as it afterwards became.
"Sejanus!" they exclaimed, with one voice, closing in to read what the minister had written.
"Sejanus to C.Coecilius Rufus, Duumvir.
"ROME, XIX.Kal.