These words were addressed to Quintus, for she saw that Thrax Barbatus was deeply touched by her loving attention to the dead, and she wished to escape being thanked. Quintus Claudius, notwithstanding his strong sympathy with Thrax and Eurymachus, could not feel quite at his ease in his new and strange position. The idea that he--the member of a senatorial family, the son of one of the noblest houses in the empire--should make common cause with artizans, freedmen and slaves, was so preposterous in the state of society then existing, that even a lofty and magnanimous nature required time to enable it to subdue the sense of strangeness and even of repulsion. After some hesitation he addressed himself to Thrax, asking him--as though half conscious of a wish to justify himself in his own eyes: “And will you answer for the perfect innocence of Eurymachus, on your solemn oath and pledge?” “My lord,” said Barbatus, “he is as innocent and pure as the sun in the sky. I will swear it by the soul of my dead son! Ah, you do not know his persecutor, the ruthless Stephanus--if you did, you would have no doubts in the matter. The crimes that man has committed during the last ten years, cry to God for vengeance like the blood of the massacred lamb of Bethlehem! I, as you see me, have been the victim of that wretch!” “You too? How did that happen?” “In the way which might be called ‘the way of Stephanus.’[275] I had inherited a little fortune from my father, and had laid it out at interest; I intended to save it and add a little to it for Glauce, for I could earn my living as a smith. You know, my lord, how badly free labor is paid in Rome; however, no pressure of want had ever made me touch that little dowry. I only spent the interest even during five or six years, to make a comfortable home for Glauce and give her some education. Well, one day Stephanus produced a forged will, by which the money was left to him under some trivial pretext. He was a beginner in those days and tried his hand on small game, but since then he has grown greedy and gorges the fortunes of men of higher rank. However, everything turned out as was to be feared--false witnesses, cunning lawyers and bribed judges--I lost everything I possessed.” “Atrocious!” exclaimed the young noble. “And did no one come forward to stand up for you? Did no young advocate defend the truth for truth’s sake?” “No one. Oh! Stephanus went to work more craftily than you fancy. He bribed those, who might have opposed him, with imaginary legacies from the testator--some he frightened with mysterious threats--but in short, he has grown rich, a perfect Croesus, and all by forged wills. Hundreds of his victims have perished in despair and misery. He shuns neither violence nor treachery; and he sins unpunished, for he has powerful supporters. It is said that Parthenius, the chamberlain....”