in honour of the Emperor Claudius, to which had flocked all the
mightiest in the land and tens of thousands of the people.  The city
was full of them, their camps were set upon the sea-beach and for
miles around; there was no room at the inns or in the private houses,
where guests slept upon the roofs, the couches, the floors, and in the
gardens.  The great town hummed like a hive of bees disturbed after
sunset, and though the louder sounds of revelling had died away,
parties of feasters, many of them still crowned with fading roses,
passed along the streets shouting and singing to their lodgings.  As
they went, they discussed--those of them who were sufficiently sober--
the incidents of that day's games in the great circus, and offered or
accepted odds upon the more exciting events of the morrow. 

The captives in the prison that was set upon a little hill, a frowning
building of brown stone, divided into courts and surrounded by a high
wall and a ditch, could hear the workmen at their labours in the
amphitheatre below.  These sounds interested them, since many of those
who listened were doomed to take a leading part in the spectacle of
this new day.  In the outer court, for instance, were a hundred men
called malefactors, for the most part Jews convicted of various