The Roman Read Free

and win fame. This thought was so demented that it could only have been born in the sore heart of a fifteen-year-old, but the most lunatic thing of all was that Barbus, who was as drunk as usual that afternoon, considered the plan an excellent one. Nor was it easy for him to oppose it after the many stories he had told me of his own heroic deeds. He himself had caught lions in nets innumerable times to acquire extra income to supplement his meager pay. It was necessary that we leave the city immediately since the police might well be on their way to arrest me, and in any case I was certain that our horses would be taken from us forever�early the following morning at the latest. I found only six of my friends, for three of them had been wise enough to tell their parents at once what had happened, and their parents had immediately sent them out of the city. My friends, who were severely shaken, were so delighted with my plan that we soon began to bluster and brag among ourselves. We fetched our horses from the stables in secret and rode out of the city. Meanwhile Barbus got a bag of silver pieces from Marcius the silk merchant, took it to the amphitheater and bribed an experienced animal trainer to come with us. They loaded a cart with nets, weapons and leather protectors and met us outside the city by our sacrificial tree. Barbus also brought meat, bread and a couple of large jars of wine. The wine restored my appetite, for hitherto I had been so anxious and depressed, I had not been able to swallow a single bite of food. The moon was out when we set off. Barbus and the animal trainer amused us with stories of lion catches in different countries. They described it as something so simple that I and my friends, fired by the wine, sought to restrain them from taking too much
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    part in our venture so that we might receive all the honor. This they willingly promised to do, assuring us that they sought only to help us with advice and with their experience, and that they themselves would keep well out of the way. As far as I was concerned, I had witnessed in the amphitheater with my own eyes how ingeniously an experienced band of men could capture a lion with a net and how easy it is for a man with two spears to kill one. At dawn we came to the village we had heard about. The villagers were busy lighting their cooking fires. The rumor had been false, for the village was by no means terror-stricken. In fact, it was very proud of its lion. No other lion had been seen in the district within living memory. This one lived in a mountain cave nearby and had worn a path down to a stream. The previous night it had killed and eaten a goat the villagers had fled to a tree by the path so that their valuable cattle should not be taken. The lion had never attacked a human being. On the contrary, it used to make itself known by giving a couple of deep roars as it emerged from its cave. Nor was it a very demanding lion, for it contented itself, for lack of anything better, with eating carcasses, insofar as the jackals allowed it to. Furthermore, the villagers had already built a sturdy wooden cage in which they intended to convey the beast to Antioch and sell it. A lion captured with nets must be bound firmly as its limbs can be injured if one does not quickly put it in a cage and loosen the ropes. �When the villagers heard our plans, they were not at all pleased. Fortunately they had not yet had time to sell the lion, but when they realized our situation, they pressed us so hard that l3arbus had to pay them two thousand sesterces for the lion and the cage. When the purchase was settled and the money counted, Barbus suddenly began to shiver all over and suggested that we should all get some sleep now and leave the capture of the lion until the following day. The people of Antioch would by then have had time to calm down after the scandal we had caused. But the animal trainer sensibly remarked that now was the right moment to drive the lion