"As to your question concerning this youth," resumed Tiberius, "my object is partly to add a novel and curious feature to the fight--this strange sword-play. Yet, why should he not afterward be included in some great slaughter-match, three or four hundred a side, care being taken that he should be finished? We might first pit him fairly against six or a dozen single antagonists in succession. If he conquer them all, it will be unprecedentedly amusing; the people will be in ecstasies, and then the victor can be made to disappear in the general conflict. I shall thus have the undisturbed management of his sister's education." Grave as a statue, Sejanus replied, "He is a proud youth, an equestrian, a patrician, son of an eminent warrior, nephew of one who once shared in the government of the whole globe. Well, not being a slave, if he found himself in the arena by virtue of having been violently seized and trepanned, I firmly believe that, either before or after fighting, he would make a speech, appealing to the justice of the emperor and the sympathy of the people, not to say any thing about the soldiers.[23] The plan you propose, my Cæsar, seems like furnishing him with an immense audience and a gigantic tribunal, before which to tell that pathetic story about his father and the battle of Philippi, and those family estates which are now in the possession of the two beautiful ladies whose litters have just preceded us on the road to Formiæ." Tiberius smiled, as with his head bent down he looked at the speaker, and thus he continued stooping, looking, and smiling for a moment or two, after which he said, "The Tuscans are subtle, and you are the subtlest of Tuscans; what is best?" Sejanus said, "Let the girl first be carried away; let the mother and brother break their hearts for her; then let the Lanista Thellus, who is not known to be one of your men, but is supposed to hire out his gladiators on his own account, invite the youth to join his _familia_,[24] or company, and when Paulus refuses, as he will refuse, let Thellus say that he knows money would not bribe Paulus, but that he has seen Paulus's sister; that he can guide him to her, if Paulus consents to fight in the next great forthcoming shows. And, in short, in order to make all this more specious, let Thellus have formed the acquaintance of the half-Greek family, mother, sister, brother, before the girl is abducted, in order that Paulus may think he speaks the truth when afterward saying that he has seen the sister and knows her, and can guide Paulus to where she is detained. If this plan be adopted, Paulus will fight in the arena of _his own accord_, and will make no speeches, no disturbance, but will disappear for ever in a decorous and legitimate manner."