THE SORROW OF COMPANIONS FOR OUR AFFLICTIONS. THE AND ITS VICTIMS.  
IT was now late on the third and last day of the trial of Glaucus and Olinthus. A few hours after the court had broken up and been given, a small party of the fashionable youth at Pompeii were assembled round the fastidious board of Lepidus.
 
'So Glaucus denies his crime to the last?' said Clodius.
 
'Yes; but the of Arbaces was convincing; he saw the blow given,' answered Lepidus.
 
'What could have been the cause?'
 
'Why, the priest was a gloomy and fellow. He probably rated Glaucus soundly about his gay life and gaming habits, and ultimately swore he would not consent to his marriage with Ione. High words arose; Glaucus seems to have been full of the god, and struck in sudden . The excitement of wine, the desperation of , brought on the under which he suffered for some days; and I can readily imagine, poor fellow! that, yet confused by that delirium, he is even now unconscious of the crime he committed! Such, at least, is the shrewd of Arbaces, who seems to have been most kind and forbearing in his testimony.'
 
'Yes; he has made himself generally popular by it. But, in consideration of these circumstances, the senate should have relaxed the sentence.'
 
'And they would have done so, but for the people; but they were . The priest had spared no pains to excite them; and they imagined—the !—because Glaucus was a rich man and a gentleman, that he was likely to escape; and therefore they were against him, and doubly resolved upon his sentence. It seems, by some accident or other, that he was never formally as a Roman citizen; and thus the senate is deprived of the power to resist the people, though, after all, there was but a majority of three against him. Ho! the Chian!'
 
'He looks sadly altered; but how composed and fearless!'
 
'Ay, we shall see if his firmness will last over to-morrow.' But what merit in courage, when that hound, Olinthus, manifested the same?'
 
'The blasphemer! Yes,' said Lepidus, with , 'no wonder that one of the decurions was, but two days ago, struck dead by lightning in a sky.' The gods feel against Pompeii while the is alive within its walls.'
 
'Yet so was the senate, that had he but expressed his , and a few grains of on the altar of Cybele, he would have been let off. I doubt whether these Nazarenes, had they the state religion, would be as tolerant to us, supposing we had kicked down the image of their , blasphemed their , and denied their faith.'
 
'They give Glaucus one chance, in consideration of the circumstances; they allow him, against the lion, the use of the same stilus wherewith he the priest.'
 
'Hast thou seen the lion? hast thou looked at his teeth and , and thou call that a chance? Why, sword and buckler would be reed and against the rush of the beast! No, I think the true mercy has been, not to leave him long in ; and it was therefore fortunate for him that our laws are slow to pronounce, but swift to execute; and that the games of the amphitheatre had been, by a sort of , so long since for to-morrow. He who awaits death, dies twice.'
 
'As for the , said Clodius, 'he is to cope the grim tiger naked-handed. Well, these combats are past betting on. Who will take the ?' A of laughter announced the of the question.
 
'Poor Clodius!' said the host; I to lose a friend is something; but to find no one to bet on the chance of his escape is a worse misfortune to thee.'
 
'Why, it is provoking; it would have been some to him and to me to think he was useful to the last.'
 
'The people,' said the grave Pansa, 'are all delighted with the result. They were so much afraid the sports at the amphitheatre would go off without a criminal for the beasts; and now, to get two such criminals is indeed a joy for the poor fellows! They work hard; they ought to have some amusement.'
 
'There speaks the popular Pansa, who never moves without a string of clients as long as an Indian triumph. He is always about the people. Gods! he will end by being a Gracchus!'
 
'Certainly I am no patrician,' said Pansa, with a generous air.
 
'Well,' observed Lepidus, it would have been assuredly dangerous to have been merciful at the eve of a beast-fight. If ever I, though a Roman bred and born, come to be tried, pray Jupiter there may be either no beasts in the vivaria, or plenty of criminals in the .'
 
'And pray,' said one of the party, 'what has become of the poor girl whom Glaucus was to have married? A widow without being a bride—that is hard!'
 
'Oh,' returned Clodius, 'she is safe under the protection of her , Arbaces. It was natural she should go to him when she had lost both lover and brother.'
 
'By sweet Venus, Glaucus was fortunate among the women. They say the rich Julia was in love with him.'
 
'A mere , my friend,' said Clodius, coxcombically; 'I was with her to-day. If any feeling of the sort she ever conceived, I flatter myself that I have consoled her.'
 
', gentlemen!' said Pansa; 'do you not know that Clodius is employed at the house of Diomed in blowing hard at the torch? It begins to burn, and will soon shine bright on the of Hymen.'
 
'Is it so?' said Lepidus. 'What! Clodius become a married man?—Fie!'
 
'Never fear,' answered Clodius; 'old Diomed is delighted at the notion of marrying his daughter to a nobleman, and will come down largely with the sesterces. You will see that I shall not lock them up in the atrium. It will be a white day for his jolly friends, when Clodius marries an heiress.'
 
'Say you so?' cried Lepidus; 'come, then, a full cup to the health of the fair Julia!'
 
While such was the conversation—one not to the tone of mind common among the dissipated of that day, and which might perhaps, a century ago, have found an echo in the looser circles of Paris—while such, I say, was the conversation in the triclinium of Lepidus, far different the scene which before the young Athenian.
 
After his , Glaucus was admitted no more to the gentle of Sallust, the only friend of his . He was led along the till the guards stopped at a small door by the side of the temple of Jupiter. You may see the place still. The door opened in the centre in a somewhat singular fashion, round on its hinges, as it were, like a modern turnstile, so as only to leave half the threshold open at the same time. Through this narrow they thrust the prisoner, placed before him a loaf and a of water, and left him to darkness, and, as he thought, to . So sudden had been that revolution of fortune which had him from the palmy height of youthful pleasure and successful love to the lowest abyss of ignominy, and the horror of a most death, that he could scarcely convince himself that he was not held in the of some fearful dream. His and glorious frame had triumphed over a potion, the greater part of which he had fortunately not drained. He had recovered sense and consciousness, but still a dim and depression clung to his nerves and darkened his mind. His natural courage, and the Greek nobility of pride, enabled him to all unbecoming , and, in the judgment-court,............