FABLES. 



177 



OESAR AND THE SLAVE. 



As Tiberius Caesar was upon a journey to Naples, 

 he stopped at a house which he had upon the 

 mountain Misenus. As he was walking in the 

 gardens attached to the house, one of his domestic 

 Slaves appeared in the walks, sprinkling the 

 ground with a watering pot, in order to lay the 

 dust, and this he did so officiously, and ran with so 

 much alertness from one walk to another, that 

 wherever the Emperor went, he still found this 

 fellow mighty busy with his watering pot. But at 

 last his design being discovered, which was to 

 attract the notice of Caesar by his extraordinary 

 diligence, in the hope that he would make him free, 

 part of the ceremony of doing which consisted in 

 giving the Slave a gentle stroke on one side of his 

 face, his imperial Majesty being disposed to be 

 merry, called the man to him, and when he 

 came up, full of the joyful expectation of his liberty, 



VOL. IV. 



2 A 



