The Gladiators: A tale of Rome and Judea

From Scylla to Charybdis. Up one street, down another, avoiding the main thoroughfares, now rendered impassable by the tumult, his anxious freedmen threaded their way with difficulty in the direction of the Tribunes house.

Mariamne seemed either to have fainted, or to have resigned herself to her fate, for she had ceased to struggle, and cowered down on the floor of the chariot, silent and motionless. Damasippus trusted his difficulties were nearly over, and resolved never again to be concerned in such an enterprise.

Already he imagined himself safe in his patrons porch, claiming the reward of his dexterity, when he was once more arrested by a stoppage which promised a hazardous and protracted delay. Winding its slow length along, in all the pomp and dignity affected by the maiden order, a procession of Vestals crossed in front of the white horses, and not a man in Rome but would have trembled with superstitious awe at the bare notion of breaking in on The azaauum.