quietly to the robbery and only smiled coldly and silently to herself.




CHAPTER VI.

Alexandria was in the greatest excitement.

The Emperor's visit now immediately impending had tempted the busy hive
of citizens away from the common round of life in which, day after day,
--swarming, hurrying, pushing each other on, or running each other down--
they raced for bread and for the means of filling their hours of leisure
with pleasures and amusements. The unceasing wheel of industry to-day
had pause in the factories, workshops, storehouses and courts of justice,
for all sorts and conditions of men were inspired by the same desire to
celebrate Hadrian's visit with unheard-of splendor. All that the
citizens could command of inventive skill, of wealth, and of beauty was
called forth to be displayed in the games and processions which were to
fill up a number of days. The richest of the heathen citizens had
undertaken the management of the pieces to be performed in the Theatre,
of the mock fight on the lake, and of the sanguinary games in the
Amphitheatre; and so great was the number of opulent persons that many
more were prepared to pay for smaller projects, for which there was no
opening. Nevertheless the arrangements for certain portions of the
procession, in which even the less wealthy were to take a share, the
erection of the building in the Hippodrome, the decorations in the
streets, and the preparations for entertaining the Roman visitors
absorbed sums so large that they seemed extravagant even to the prefect
Titianus, who was accustomed to see his fellow-officials in Rome squander