midday
The rest of his life was at the bidding of Him Who mutely from the Cross had demanded his allegiance : a lonely hut somewhere on the Campania , or further if God demanded it , a life of strenuous effort to win souls for Christ , and the renunciation of all that had made life easy and pleasant hitherto . God alone knew how easy that would have been to him forty-eight hours ago . Taurus Antinor hated and despised the life of Rome , the tyranny of a demented Cæsar , the indolence of the daily routine , the ever-recurrent spectacles of hideous , inhuman cruelty . Until that midday hour in the Forum four days ago , he had viewed his new prospective life with a sense of infinite relief . But now renunciation meant something more . Detachment from Rome and all its pomps , its glories , and its cruelties meant also detachment from the presence of Dea Flavia . It meant the tearing out of his very heartstrings which had found root at a woman 's feet .