Varus had once imagined he could become a great poet, one whose readings would fill a hall and might even fill this theater. His first public performance had been a disaster, not so much in the eyes of those attending as in his own.

On that occasion, the audience had been of freedmen and hangers-on of his father's wealthy friends, sent as a courtesy. They had expected to be bored. Varus himself was too intelligent and too well taught- He glanced over his shoulder toward his teacher, Pandareus of Athens; the scholar nodded crisply in reply. He sat in the Tribunal as a mark of Saxa's gratitude.

– -not to understand how bad his epic was when he heard the words coming out of his mouth.

Under the careful direction of two handlers each, the Cattle of the Sun-big animals with bright bay hides-were marching across the stage. Though they had been gelded and their horns sparkled with gold paint for this show, they were of the same Iberian stock as the bulls which not infrequently gored to death the lions and tigers set to fight them in the arena.

While even more dangerous animals sometimes appeared on stage, these steers were nothing to have loose in the belly of the theater. That was especially true since the seats in the orchestra were reserved for senators and their families.

A steer bellowed peevishly and lashed its tail. The actor playing Hercules stood at the back of the scene on a "rock"; he twitched noticeably. It was unlikely that an angry animal would crash through the spiked iron fence protecting the orchestra, but one certainly might knock down the mountain of plaster on a wicker frame and then start in on the actor who had been standing on it.

The audience would love it, Varus thought, smiling faintly. He wasn't the sort of aristocrat who sneered at The Many, the common people; but even at seventeen he was enough of a philosopher to be wryly amused by the difference between his tastes and those of his fellow citizens of Carce-including the tastes of many who were just as well born as the Alphenus family.