The worthy
innkeeper Agathon was aroused, and went out into the highway to
learn the cause of the confusion. The two students had gone on the
inn roof to look out. But they surmised danger for foreigners like
themselves, and, alarmed by the ever louder shouting, descended
again, and concealed themselves in the wine-press. At last Agathon's
voice was heard: "Caesar is assassinated! Death to the Romans!
Freedom for Hellas!"
Such was the news. The garden of the inn filled with people, wine
flowed, and shouts of joy resounded, varied by sarcastic remarks on
the passing Romans who were fleeing northwards from the town in
order to reach the Macedonian frontier.
Maro and Flaccus underwent great anxiety, hidden as they were in the
vat of the wine-press, from which hiding-place they heard the whole
news, with its accompanying details. Caesar had been assassinated by
Cassius and Brutus in the Capitol.
"Brutus?" whispered Maro. "Then it is certainly over with the
Caesars, just as the old Brutus made an end of the Kings!"
And Brutus was flying to Hellas to rouse the Greeks against the
Romans. "Long live Brutus!" they cried in the garden.
"Then we shall live also!" said the pliant Flaccus. "Caesar is dead;
let us do homage to Brutus for the present."
* * * * *
Many years had passed when the former student of Athens, Quintus
Horatius Flaccus, was walking one day in the garden of his villa
on the Sabine Hills.
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