Suddenly one of the slaves announced that a vessel had just entered the harbour, with an important messenger on board. Just what his errand was no one as yet knew, in fact, nothing would be known until the next day. There were, however, grave rumours, and serious happenings were said to be going on at Rome. A shiver ran around the table. The Egyptians, always suspicious concerning Rome and her schemes, already felt the entangling meshes of the net which perhaps in another twenty-four hours would hold them captives. What might this news be? What horrors, what scandals, were yet in store? For the past two years the Forum had been nothing more than a nest of bandits, and the echo of its evil brawls was constantly in their ears. Polydemus, anxious that there should be no second disturbance at his supper, expressed the hope that with the triumph of the Cæsarian party an era of peace and order would be established. But there was an outcry from his guests. What order, what justice could be expected from people who, although fighting for the same cause, had never ceased to destroy each other? No one referred to Lepidus; his very mediocrity protected him from criticism. But what of Antony? Of Octavius? Which of these was the greater villain? In the hubbub of noisy speeches each gave himself up to reciting the various sensational acts which witnesses, or writers, had handed on to him. "While performing his sacred duties a priest was told he was to be banished and sought refuge," said Eudoxos. "Too late! Before he could cross the sill of the Tribunal, a centurion stabbed him." Lycon declared that mothers, to save themselves, shut their doors against their own sons who were suspected of treason; that daughters did not hesitate to tell where their fathers were concealed. Even little children, according to another, were no longer safe. One child, on its way to school, had been seized by an executioner and slaughtered before the eyes of its parents. "Remember, above all else, the brutal assassination of Cicero," cried the rhetorician, Antipus, who had made a journey to Rome expressly to hear the voice of that great orator. "That was an unpardonable crime," agreed one of his colleagues, "and it will leave a lasting stain on the name of Mark Antony!" Apollodorus, who the moment before had been praising the latter, in order to protect the Queen, now tried to throw the odium of this assassination on Octavius. He was chiefly to blame; the friend of Cicero, he, like a white-livered coward, and without a single qualm, had given Cicero into the hands of the murderers. He whom, only a few days before, Cicero had pressed to his heart and called his son!