At Vulsinii we had a sound sleep at an inn and a bountiful meal at dawn. We needed both before dark, for Maternus marched us the entire twenty- eight miles to Forum Cassii by sunset. I was in as hard condition as any of his band and I stood the long tramp well. Next day we paused for barely an hour, near noon, at Sutrium, and made the twenty-three miles to Baccanae easily. The third day we even more easily made the twenty-one from Baccanae to Rome. Rome, naturally, I approached with emotion. I had gazed back on it from the road to Tibur, certain that I should never again behold it. And I was now about to enter it under most amazing circumstances, as the associate of cutthroats and ruffians, as a sworn member of a conspiracy to assassinate the Prince of the Republic, as the prisoner of a ruthless outlaw, as a suspected associate of a chieftain who might stab me at the slightest false action, motion, word, tone or look. There is, I think, no view of Rome as one approaches it along the Via Clodia or the Via Flaminia which is as fine as anyone of a score from points on the Via Salaria and Via Tiburtina. But, on a clear, mild, mellow summer afternoon I caught glorious glimpses of the city from the higher points of the road as we neared it. The sight moved me to tears, tears which I was careful to conceal. I could not but note the fulfillment of the prophecy made by the Aemilian Sibyl. I could not but hope that I might survive to see Rome under happier circumstances. Amid manifold dangers as I was, I was not gloomy. We entered the city by the Flaminian Gate, of course, and, in the waning light, walked boldly the whole length of the Via Lata, diagonally across from the Forum of Trajan, under his Triumphal Arch, through the Forum of Augustus, and across, the Forum of Nerva past the Temple of Minerva and so to the Subura. All the way from the City Gate to the slum district I marvelled at Maternus: he never asked his way, took every turn correctly; and, amid the splendors of Trajan's Forum, behaved like a frequenter, habituated to such magnificence. Equally did he seem at home amid such crowds as he could never have mingled with. He comported himself so as to attract no remark. As we passed the Temple of Minerva I sighed and remarked that I would give anything short of life itself for a bath. "You need not give that much; we can bathe for a _quadrans_, and, since you mention it, we shall all be better for a bath." "There is no reason why you and the rest should not bathe," I rejoined, ruefully, "but with my back and shoulder a bath is no place for me." "Pooh!" laughed Maternus, "you grew up in Rome and I never set foot in it till today, yet you know no bath you dare enter, while I can lead you to a bath-house where no one will heed or notice brand-marks or scourge-sears."