And as for the Greeks, you forget, O my Lentulus, the pirates I am going to punish are Greeks.
One victory over them is of more account than a hundred over the Africans.”
“Then thy way is to the Aegean?”
The sailor’s eyes were full of his ship.
“What grace, what freedom!
A bird hath not less care for the fretting of the waves.
See!” he said, but almost immediately added, “Thy pardon, my Lentulus.
I am going to the Aegean; and as my departure is so near, I will tell the occasion— only keep it under the rose.
I would not that you abuse the duumvir when next you meet him.
He is my friend.
The trade between Greece and Alexandria, as ye may have heard, is hardly inferior to that between Alexandria and Rome.
The people in that part of the world forgot to celebrate the Cerealia, and Triptolemus paid them with a harvest not worth the gathering.
At all events, the trade is so grown that it will not brook interruption a day.
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. Sept.
“C?sar hath good report of Quintus Arrius, the tribune.
In particular he bath heard of his valor, manifested in the western seas, insomuch that it is his will that the said Quintus be transferred instantly to the East.
“It is our Caesar’s will, further, that you cause a hundred triremes, of the first class, and full appointment, to be despatched without delay against the pirates who have appeared in the Aegean, and that Quintus be sent to command the fleet so despatched.
“Details are thine, my Caecilius.
“The necessity is urgent, as thou will be advised by the reports enclosed for thy perusal and the information of the said Quintus.
“Sejanus.”
Arrius gave little heed to the reading.
As the ship drew more plainly out of the perspective, she became more and more an attraction to him.
The look with which he watched her was that of an enthusiast.
At length he tossed the loosened folds of his toga in the air; in reply to the signal, over the aplustre, or fan-like fixture at the stern of the vessel, a scarlet flag was displayed; while several sailors appeared upon the bulwarks, and swung themselves hand over hand up the ropes to the antenna, or yard, and furled the sail.
The bow was put round, and the time of the oars increased one half; so that at racing speed she bore down directly towards him and his friends.
He observed the manoeuvring with a perceptible brightening of the eyes. Her instant answer to the rudder, and the steadiness with which she kept her course, were especially noticeable as virtues to be relied upon in action.
“By the Nymphae!” said one of the friends, giving back the roll, “we may not longer say our friend will be great; he is already great. Our love will now have famous things to feed upon.
What more hast thou for us?”
“Nothing more,” Arrius replied. “What ye have of the affair is by this time old news in Rome, especially between the palace and the Forum.
The duumvir is discreet; what I am to do, where go to find my fleet, he will tell on the ship, where a sealed package is waiting me. If, however, ye have offerings for any of the altars to-day, pray the gods for a friend plying oar and sail somewhere in the direction of Sicily.