Publisher's Synopsis
The Consul Duilius was entertaining Rome in triumph after his celebrated defeat of the Carthaginian fleet at Mylae. He had won a great naval victory for his country with the first fleet that it had ever possessed-which was naturally a gratifying reflection, and he would have been perfectly happy now if he had only been a little more comfortable. But he was standing in an extremely rickety chariot, which was crammed with his nearer relations, and a few old friends, to whom he had been obliged to send tickets. At his back stood a slave, who held a heavy Etruscan crown on the Consul's head, and whenever he thought his master was growing conceited, threw in the reminder that he was only a man after all-a liberty which at any other time he might have had good reason to regret."
