“These must be enchantments.”
“I too have thought so,” answered Vinicius; “more than once it seemed to me that we were enchanted, both of us.”
“And if thou,” said Petronius, “were to go, for example, to the priests of Serapis? Among them, as among priests in general, there are many deceivers, no doubt; but there are others who have reached wonderful secrets.”
He said this, however, without conviction and with an uncertain voice, for he himself felt how empty and even ridiculous that counsel must seem on his lips.
Vinicius rubbed his forehead, and said: “Enchantments! I have seen sorcerers who employed unknown and subterranean powers to their personal profit; I have seen those who used them to the harm of their enemies. But these Christians live in poverty, forgive their enemies, preach
