All life looked stale and dull to the Phrygian slave when the glow of an Italian morning entering his cell aroused him to the duties of the day. Slaves, even in a humble home like that of Pudens, were so numerous as to make those duties inconceivably light. For the greater part of the day his time was his own, for all he had to do was to wait on Pudens when he went out, carrying anything which his master might require. But henceforth his thoughts were day-dreams, and, when not engaged in work, he found nothing to do but to join in the gossip of his fellow-slaves. Their talk turned usually on three subjects--their masters, and all the low society slanders of the city; the delights of the taverns; the merits of rival gladiators and charioteers, whose names were on every lip. Such conversation led of course to incessant betting, and many a slave lost the whole amount of his savings again and again by backing the merits of a Pacideianus or a Spicillus; or by running up too long scores at the cook-shop (_popina_) to which his fellow-slaves resorted; or by trying to win the affections of some favourite female flute-player from Syria or Spain. Gambling, too, was the incessant diversion of these idle hordes. The _familia_ of Pudens only consisted of the modest number of thirty, but the slave population of Rome was of colossal magnitude, and there was a terrible free-masonry among the members of this wretched and corrupted class. The companions of Onesimus were not chiefly to be found in the household to which he belonged, but among the lewd idlers whom he picked up as acquaintances in every street. With these he played at dice, and sauntered about, and jested, and drank, and squabbled, and betted, until he was on the high road towards being as low a specimen of the slave-world as any of them all--a beautiful human soul caught in the snare of the devil, lured by the glittering bait of vice, to be dragged forth soon to die lacerated and gasping upon the shore.