‘Sanguinem quoque gladiatorum bibunt, ut viventibus poculis, comitiales morbi ... At hercule illi ex homine ipso sorbere efficacissimum putant calidum spirantemque, et una ipsam animam ex osculo vulnerum.’--PLINY, _N. H._ xxviii. 2. A few days before the scene described in the last chapter there had been gladness in the bright but humble home of Pudens. He had risen to the rank of a primipilar centurion, and was now in a position to ask the British king Caradoc for the hand of his lovely Claudia. He had only delayed his nuptials until he felt himself able to give his bride a secure and fitting home. Everything was fresh and beautiful in the adornments of the house. The atrium was full of flowers and statues, the door was hung with garlands, the frescoes in the tablinum and triclinium were all new. No mythological scene had been admitted, but the walls of the triclinium were painted with festoons of fruit and flowers and trellises of roses, among which little winged genii held their sports; and the tablinum with scenes of street life and the toils of agriculture, and purple vineyards, as perfect as the pencil of Dorotheus could make them. One little corner of the fresco was universally admired as a masterpiece. Pudens had asked the painter to imitate one of the vases of iridescent glass which were then in fashion, and, in honour of Claudia, to fill it with lilies. Pudens had greatly admired a similar painting on the wall of the house of Germanicus on the Palatine (where it may be seen to this day), and in reproducing it Dorotheus had surpassed himself. The betrothal had taken place some time before, and on that occasion Pudens had given to his future bride a golden necklace of old Etrurian workmanship, with pendants of amethyst. It gleamed round her fair neck as she sat waiting for the bridal summons in her father’s house, trying to dispel the gloom which fell on the old king when he recalled that he was losing for a time the light of his home.