"Why, our King of the Highwaymen has reliable, capable and secret agents, entirely unsuspected, in every city of Italy. He has a brother and sister in Rome and equally devoted and unfailing helpers in Capua, Aquileia, Milan, Brundisium and Naples. He maintains a road service of swift couriers who bring him promptly all the information collected for him in the cities, where his backers catch every breeze of rumor and are forehanded in getting advance information on all important moves of the authorities as well as in sifting truth from falsehood. Equally prompt are his couriers in disseminating to subsidiary bands like mine whatever he judges we should learn; thus we know more of goings-on in Rome and at Court than do provincial nobles and highway-police." As I trudged from the camp to my horse, as I trotted homewards, I was despondent. I had no right to be so, for I was merely one of the innumerable slaves held by the _fiscus_ as the property of Caesar. As such I was notably well off. Even in my proper person I congratulated myself on my amazing luck. I was alive, unsuspected, secure, well-housed, well-clad, well-cared for, freer than many a freeman, than many a nobleman, pleasantly busy at occasional tasks very congenial to me and blest with much leisure among a companionable population in a lovely region full of diversified and charming scenery set off by an exhilarating climate; I should have been gay. Yet my thoughts were those of a Roman nobleman. I was horrified at the state of the Republic. I knew that Italy had never been entirely free from outlaws. Even under Tiberius highwaymen had perpetrated successful robberies and had captured and held for ransom wealthy persons or even notabilities. But under most of the Emperors these outrages had been few and had occurred only in the wilder districts. During the civil wars between Otho and Vitellius brigandage had become rife all over Italy, even up to the gates of Rome, and Vespasian had had much ado to exterminate the outlaws. Again, under Nerva, bandits had multiplied and prospered. But none had ventured into any populous district during the principates of Trajan, Hadrian and their successors until after the death of Aurelius. Now, because of the negligence of his son, outlaws had so prospered that they had a sort of organization among themselves, like a commonwealth inside the Republic, as I had seen during my captivity with Maternus and now glimpsed again in Bulla's revelations. It argued a horrible disintegration of the governmental mechanism of the Republic and of the Roman character that such things had become possible.