"No! by the gods," cried Aurelius, "we have a race to come off, which I propose to win. Fuscus Aristius here, and I—we will start instantly, if no one else has the ground." "Away with you then," answered the other; "come sit by me, Arvina, I would say a word with you." Giving his horse to one of his grooms, the young man followed him without answer; for although it is true that Catiline was at this time a marked man and of no favorable reputation, yet squeamishness in the choice of associates was never a characteristic of the Romans; and persons, the known perpetrators of the most atrocious crimes, so long as they were unconvicted, mingled on terms of equality, unshunned by any, except the gravest and most rigid censors. Arvina, too, was very young; and very young men are often fascinated, as it were, by great reputations, even of great criminals, with a passionate desire to see them more closely, and observe the stuff they are made of. So that, in fact, Catiline being looked upon in those days much as a desperate gambler, a celebrated duellist, or a famous seducer of our own time, whom no one shuns though every one abuses, it was not perhaps very wonderful if this rash, ardent, and inexperienced youth should have conceived himself flattered by such notice, from one of whom all the world was talking; and should have followed him to a seat with a sense of gratified vanity, blended with eager curiosity. The race, which followed, differed not much from any other race; except that the riders having no stirrups, that being a yet undiscovered luxury, much less depended upon jockeyship—the skill of the riders being limited to keeping their seats steadily and guiding the animals they bestrode—and much more upon the native powers, the speed and endurance of the coursers. So much, however, was Arvina interested by the manner and conversation of the singular man by whose side he sat, and who was indeed laying himself out with deep art to captivate him, and take his mind, as it were, by storm, now with the boldest and most daring paradoxes; now with bursts of eloquent invective against the oppression and aristocratic insolence of the cabal, which by his shewing governed Rome; and now with sarcasm and pungent wit, that he saw but little of the course, which he had come especially to look at. "Do you indeed ride so well, my Paullus?" asked his companion suddenly, as if the thought had been suggested by some observation he had just made on the competitors, as they passed in the second circuit. "So well, I mean, as Aurelius Victor said; and would you undertake the combat of the horse and spear with Caius Marcius?"