CICERO, CATO AND CATALINE. A TRUE TALE OF THE REPUBLIC. CHAPTER I. THE OLD PATRICIAN. A Roman father of the olden time. MS. PLAY. In a small street, not far from the Sacred Way and the Roman Forum, there was a large house, occupying the whole of one _insula_, as the space contained between four intersecting streets was called by the ancients. But, although by its great size and a certain rude magnificence, arising from the massy stone-work of its walls, and the solemn antiquity of the old Oscan columns which adorned its entrance, it might be recognised at once as the abode of some Patrician family; it was as different in many respects from the abodes of the aristocracy of that day, as if it had been erected in a different age and country. It had no stately colonnades of foreign marbles, no tesselated pavement to the vestibule, no glowing frescoes on the walls, no long lines of exterior windows, glittering with the new luxury of glass. All was decorous, it is true; but all, at the same time, was stern, and grave, and singular for its antique simplicity. On either hand of the entrance, there was, in accordance with the custom of centuries long past, when Rome’s Consulars were tillers of the ground, a large shop with an open front, devoted to the sale of the produce of the owner’s farm. And, strange to say, although the custom had been long disused in these degenerate times, it seemed that the owner of this time-honored mansion adhered sturdily to the ancient usage of his race. For, in one of these large cold unadorned vaults, a tall grayheaded slave, a rural laborer, as it required no second glance to perceive, was presiding over piles of cheese, stone-jars of honey, baskets of autumn fruits, and sacks of grain, by the red light of a large smoky flambeau; while a younger man, who from his resemblance to the other might safely be pronounced his son, was keeping an account of the sales by a somewhat complicated system of tallies. In the other apartment, two youths, slaves likewise from the suburban or rustic farm, were giving samples, to such as wished to buy, of different qualities of wine from several amphora or earthen pitchers, which stood on a stone counter forming the sill of the low-browed window. It was late in the evening already, and the streets were rapidly growing dark; yet there were many passengers abroad, more perhaps than was usual at that hour; and now and then, a little group would form about one or the other of the windows, cheapening and purchasing provisions, and chatting for a few minutes, after their business was finished, with their gossips.