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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10422 ***
+
+CAESAR DIES
+
+by Talbot Mundy
+
+
+
+
+I.  IN THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR COMMODUS
+
+
+
+Golden Antioch lay like a jewel at a mountain's throat.  Wide,
+intersecting streets, each nearly four miles long, granite-paved, and
+marble-colonnaded, swarmed with fashionable loiterers.  The gay
+Antiochenes, whom nothing except frequent earthquakes interrupted from
+pursuit of pleasure, were taking the air in chariots, in litters, and on
+foot;  their linen clothes were as riotously picturesque as was the
+fruit displayed in open shop-fronts under the colonnades, or as the
+blossom on the trees in public gardens, which made of the city, as seen
+from the height of the citadel, a mosaic of green and white.
+
+The crowd on the main thoroughfares was aristocratic;  opulence was
+accented by groups of slaves in close attendance on their owners;  but
+the aristocracy was sharply differentiated.  The Romans, frequently less
+wealthy (because those who had made money went to Rome to spend it)--
+frequently less educated and, in general, not less dissolute--despised
+the Antiochenes, although the Romans loved Antioch.  The cosmopolitan
+Antiochenes returned the compliment, regarding Romans as mere duffers in
+depravity, philistines in art, but capable in war and government, and
+consequently to be feared, if not respected.  So there was not much
+mingling of the groups, whose slaves took example from their masters,
+affecting in public a scorn that they did not feel but were careful to
+assert.  The Romans were intensely dignified and wore the toga, pallium
+and tunic;  the Antiochenes affected to think dignity was stupid and its
+trappings (forbidden to them) hideous;  so they carried the contrary
+pose to extremes. Patterning herself on Alexandria, the city had become
+to all intents and purposes the eastern capital of Roman empire.  North,
+south, east and west, the trade-routes intersected, entering the city
+through the ornate gates in crenelated limestone walls. From miles away
+the approaching caravans were overlooked by legionaries brought from
+Gaul and Britain, quartered in the capitol on Mount Silpius at the
+city's southern limit.  The riches of the East, and of Egypt, flowed
+through, leaving their deposit as a river drops its silt;  were ever-
+increasing.  One quarter, walled off, hummed with foreign traders from
+as far away as India, who lodged at the travelers' inns or haunted the
+temples, the wine-shops and the lupanars.  In that quarter, too, there
+were barracks, with compounds and open-fronted booths, where slaves were
+exposed for sale;  and there, also, were the caravanserais within whose
+walls the kneeling camels grumbled and the blossomy spring air grew
+fetid with the reek of dung.  There was a market-place for elephants and
+other oriental beasts.
+
+Each of Antioch's four divisions had its own wall, pierced by arched
+gates.  Those were necessary.  No more turbulent and fickle population
+lived in the known world--not even in Alexandria.  Whenever an
+earthquake shook down blocks of buildings--and that happened nearly as
+frequently as the hysterical racial riots--the Romans rebuilt with a
+view to making communications easier from the citadel, where the great
+temple of Jupiter Capitolinus frowned over the gridironed streets.
+
+Roman officials and the wealthier Macedonian Antiochenes lived on an
+island, formed by a curve of the River Orontes at the northern end
+within the city wall.  The never-neglected problem of administration was
+to keep a clear route along which troops could move from citadel to
+island when the rioting began.
+
+On the island was the palace, glittering with gilt and marble, gay with
+colored awnings, where kings had lived magnificently until Romans saved
+the city from them, substituting a proconsular paternal kind of tyranny
+originating in the Roman patria potestas.  There was not much sentiment
+about it.  Rome became the foster-parent, the possessor of authority.
+There was duty, principally exacted from the governed in the form of
+taxes and obedience;  and there were privileges, mostly reserved for the
+rulers and their parasites, who were much more numerous than anybody
+liked.  Competition made the parasites as discontented as their prey.
+
+But there were definite advantages of Roman rule, which no Antiochene
+denied, although their comic actors and the slaves who sang at private
+entertainments mocked the Romans and invented accusations of injustice
+and extortion that were even more outrageous than the truth.  Not since
+the days when Antioch inherited the luxury and vices of the Greeks and
+Syrians, had pleasure been so organized or its commercial pursuit so
+profitable.  Taxes were collected rigorously.  The demands of Rome,
+increased by the extravagance of Commodus, were merciless. But trade was
+good.  Obedience and flattery were well rewarded. Citizens who yielded
+to extortion and refrained from criticism within hearing of informers
+lived in reasonable expectation of surviving the coming night.
+
+But the informers were ubiquitous and unknown, which was another reason
+why the Romans and Antiochenes refrained from mixing socially more than
+could be helped.  A secret charge of treason, based on nothing more than
+an informer's malice, might set even a Roman citizen outside the pale of
+ordinary law and make him liable to torture.  If convicted, death and
+confiscation followed.  Since the deification of the emperors it had
+become treason even to use a coarse expression near their images or
+statues;  images were on the coins;  statues were in the streets.
+Commodus, to whom all confiscated property accrued, was in ever-
+increasing need of funds to defray the titanic expense of the games that
+he lavished on Rome and the "presents" with which he studiously nursed
+the army's loyalty.  So it was wise to be taciturn;   expedient to
+choose one's friends deliberately; not far removed from madness to be
+seen in company with those whose antecedents might suggest the
+possibility of a political intrigue.  But it was also unwise to woo
+solitude;  a solitary man might perish by the rack and sword for lack of
+witnesses, if charged with some serious offense.
+
+So there were comradeships more loyal the more that treachery stalked
+abroad.  Because seriousness drew attention from the spies, the deepest
+thoughts were masked beneath an air of levity, and merrymaking hid such
+counsels as might come within the vaguely defined boundaries of treason.
+
+Sextus, son of Maximus, rode not alone.  Norbanus rode beside him, and
+behind them Scylax on the famous Arab mare that Sextus had won from
+Artaxes the Persian in a wager on the recent chariot races.  Scylax was
+a slave but no less, for that reason, Sextus' friend.
+
+Norbanus rode a skewbald Cappadocian that kicked out sidewise at
+pedestrians;  so there was opportunity for private conversation, even on
+the road to Daphne of an afternoon in spring, when nearly all of
+fashionable Antioch was beginning to flow in that direction.  Horses,
+litters and chariots, followed by crowds of slaves on foot with the
+provisions for moonlight banquets, poured toward the northern gate, some
+overtaking and passing the three but riding wide of the skewbald
+Cappadocian stallion's heels.
+
+"If Pertinax should really come," said Sextus.
+
+"He will have a girl with him," Norbanus interrupted.  He had an
+annoying way of finishing the sentences that other folk began.
+
+"True.  When he is not campaigning Pertinax finds a woman irresistible."
+
+"And naturally, also, none resists a general in the field!" Norbanus
+added.  "So our handsome Pertinax performs his vows to Aphrodite with a
+constancy that the goddess rewards by forever putting lovely women in
+his way!  Whereas Stoics like you, Sextus, and unfortunates like me, who
+don't know how to amuse a woman, are made notorious by one least lapse
+from our austerity. The handsome, dissolute ones have all the luck.  The
+roisterers at Daphne will invent such scandalous tales of us tonight as
+will pursue us for a lustrum, and yet there isn't a chance in a thousand
+that we shall even enjoy ourselves!"
+
+"Yes.  I wish now we had chosen any other meeting place than Daphne,"
+Sextus answered gloomily.  "What odds?  Had we gone into the desert
+Pertinax would have brought his own last desperate adorer, and a couple
+more to bore us while he makes himself ridiculous.  Strange--that a man
+so firm in war and wise in government should lose his head the moment a
+woman smiles at him."
+
+"He doesn't lose his head--much," Sextus answered.  "But his father was
+a firewood seller in a village in Liguria. That is why he so loves money
+and the latest fashions.  Poverty and rags--austerity inflicted on him
+in his youth--great Jupiter!  If you and I had risen from the charcoal-
+burning to be consul twice and a grammarian and the friend of Marcus
+Aurelius;  if you and I were as handsome as he is, and had experienced a
+triumph after restoring discipline in Britain and conducting two or
+three successful wars;  and if either of us had such a wife as Flavia
+Titiana, I believe we could besmirch ourselves more constantly than
+Pertinax does!  It is not that he delights in women so much as that he
+thinks debauch is aristocratic.  Flavia Titiana is unfaithful to him.
+She is also a patrician and unusually clever. He has never understood
+her, but she is witty, so he thinks her wonderful and tries to imitate
+her immorality.  But the only woman who really sways him is the proudish
+Cornificia, who is almost as incapable of treachery as Pertinax himself.
+He is the best governor the City of Rome has had in our generation.  Can
+you imagine what Rome would be like without him?  Call to mind what it
+was like when Fuscianus was the governor!"
+
+"These are strange times, Sextus!"
+
+"Aye!  And it is a strange beast we have for emperor!"
+
+"Be careful!"
+
+Sextus glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Scylax followed
+closely and prevented any one from overhearing.  There was an endless
+procession now, before and behind, all bound for Daphne.  As the riders
+passed under the city gate, where the golden cherubim that Titus took
+from the Jews' temple in Jerusalem gleamed in the westering sun, Sextus
+noticed a slave of the municipium who wrote down the names of
+individuals who came and went.
+
+"There are new proscriptions brewing," he remarked.  "Some friends of
+ours will not see sunrise.  Well--I am in a mood to talk and I will not
+be silenced."
+
+"Better laugh then!" Norbanus advised.  "The deadliest crime nowadays is
+to have the appearance of being serious.  None suspects a drunken or a
+gay man."
+
+Sextus, however, was at no pains to appear gay.  He inherited the
+moribund traditions that the older Cato had typified some centuries ago.
+His young face had the sober, chiseled earnestness that had been
+typically Roman in the sterner days of the Republic.  He had blue-gray
+eyes that challenged destiny, and curly brown hair, that suggested
+flames as the westering sun brought out its redness.  Such mirth as
+haunted his rebellious lips was rather cynical than genial.  There was
+no weakness visible.  He had a pugnacious neck and shoulders.
+
+"I am the son of my father Maximus," he said, "and of my grandsire
+Sextus, and of his father Maximus, and of my great-great-grandsire
+Sextus.  It offends my dignity that men should call a hog like Commodus
+a god.  I will not.  I despise Rome for submission to him."
+
+"Yet what else is there in the world except to be a Roman citizen?"
+Norbanus asked.
+
+"As for being, there is nothing else," said Sextus.  "I would like to
+speak of doing.  It is what I do that answers what I am."
+
+"Then let it answer now!" Norbanus laughed.  He pointed to a little
+shrine beside the road, beneath a group of trees, where once the image
+of a local deity had smiled its blessing on the passer-by.  The bust of
+Commodus, as insolent as the brass of which the artist-slaves had cast
+it, had replaced the old benign divinity.  There was an attendant near
+by, costumed as a priest, whose duty was to see that travelers by that
+road did their homage to the image of the human god who ruled the Roman
+world. He struck a gong.  He gave fair warning of the deference
+required.  There was a little guard-house, fifty paces distant, just
+around the corner of the clump of trees, where the police were ready to
+execute summary justice, and floggings were inflicted on offenders who
+could not claim citizenship or who had no coin with which to buy the
+alternative reprimand.  Roman citizens were placed under arrest, to be
+submitted to all manner of indignities and to think themselves fortunate
+if they should escape with a heavy fine from a judge who had bought his
+office from an emperor's favorite.
+
+Most of the riders ahead dismounted and walked past the image, saluting
+it with right hands raised.  Many of them tossed coins to the priest's
+attendant slave.  Sextus remained in the saddle, his brow clouded with
+an angry scowl.  He drew rein, making no obeisance, but sent Scylax to
+present an offering of money to the priest, then rode on.
+
+"Your dignity appears to me expensive!" Norbanus remarked, grinning.
+"Gold?"
+
+"He may have my gold, if I may keep my self-respect!"
+
+"Incorrigible stoic!  He will take that also before long!"
+
+"I think not.  Commodus has lost his own and destroyed Rome's, but mine
+not yet.  I wish, though, that my father were in Antioch.  He, too, is
+no cringer to images of beasts in purple. I wrote to my father recently
+and warned him to leave Rome before Commodus's spies could invent an
+excuse for confiscating our estates.  I said, an absent man attracts
+less notice, and our estates are well worth plundering.  I also hinted
+that Commodus can hardly live forever, and reminded him that tides flow
+in and out--by which I meant him to understand that the next emperor may
+be another such as Aurelius, who will persecute the Christians but let
+honest men live in peace, instead of favoring the Christians and ridding
+Rome of honest men."
+
+Norbanus made a gesture with his right hand that sent the Cappadocian
+cavorting to the road's edge, scattering a little crowd that was trying
+to pass.
+
+"Why be jealous of the Christians?" he laughed.  "Isn't it their turn
+for a respite?  Think of what Nero did to them;  and Marcus Aurelius did
+little less.  They will catch it again when Commodus turns on his
+mistress Marcia;  he will harry them all the more when that day comes--
+as it is sure to.  Marcia is a Christian; when he tires of her he will
+use her Christianity for the excuse and throw the Christians to the
+lions by the thousand in order to justify himself for murdering the only
+decent woman of his acquaintance.  Sic semper tyrannus.  Say what you
+will about Marcia, she has done her best to keep Commodus from making a
+public exhibition of himself."
+
+"With what result?  He boasts he has killed no less than twelve hundred
+poor devils with his own hand in the arena.  True, he takes the
+pseudonym of Paulus when he kills lions with his javelin and drives a
+chariot in the races like a vulgar slave. But everybody knows, and he
+picks slaves for his ministers--consider that vile beast Cleander, whom
+even the rabble refused to endure another day.  I don't see that
+Marcia's influence amounts to much."
+
+"But Cleander was executed finally.  You are in a glum mood, Sextus.
+What has happened to upset you?"
+
+"It is the nothing that has happened.  There has come no answer to that
+letter I wrote to my father in Rome.  Commodus's informers may have
+intercepted it."
+
+Norbanus whistled softly.  The skewbald Cappadocian mistook that for a
+signal to exert himself and for a minute there were ructions while his
+master reined him in.
+
+"When did you write?" he demanded, when he had the horse under control
+again.
+
+"A month ago."
+
+Norbanus lapsed into a moody silence, critically staring at his friend
+when he was sure the other was not looking.  Sextus had always puzzled
+him by running risks that other men (himself, for instance) steadfastly
+avoided, and avoiding risks that other men thought insignificant.  To
+write a letter critical of Commodus was almost tantamount to suicide,
+since every Roman port and every rest-house on the roads that led to
+Rome had become infested with informers who were paid on a percentage
+basis.
+
+"Are you weary of life?" he asked after a while.
+
+"I am weary of Commodus--weary of tyranny--weary of lies and hypocrisy--
+weary of wondering what is to happen to Rome that submits to such
+bestial government--weary of shame and of the insolence of bribe-fat
+magistrates--"
+
+"Weary of your friends?" Norbanus asked.  "Don't you realize that if
+your letter fell into the hands of spies, not only will you be
+proscribed and your father executed, but whoever is known to have been
+intimate with you or with your father will be in almost equal danger?
+You should have gone to Rome in person to consult your father."
+
+"He ordered me to stay here to protect his interests.  We are rich,
+Norbanus.  We have much property in Antioch and many tenants to oversee.
+I am not one of these modern irreligious wastrels;  I obey my father--"
+
+"And betray him in an idiotic letter!"
+
+"Very well! Desert me while there is time!" said Sextus angrily.
+
+"Don't be a fool!  You are not the only proud man in the empire, Sextus.
+I don't desert my friend for such a coward's reason as that he acted
+thoughtlessly.  But I will tell you what I think, whether or not that
+pleases you, if only because I am your true friend.  You are a rash,
+impatient lover of the days gone by, possessed of genius that you betray
+by your arrogant hastiness. So now you know what I think, and what all
+your other friends think.  We admire--we love our Sextus, son of
+Maximus.  And we confess to ourselves that our lives are in danger
+because of that same Sextus, son of Maximus, whom we prefer above our
+safety. After this, if you continue to deceive yourself, none can blame
+me for it!"
+
+Sextus smiled and waved a hand to him.  It was no new revelation. He
+understood the attitude of all his friends far better than he did his
+own strange impulses that took possession of him as a rule when
+circumstances least provided an excuse.
+
+"My theory of loyalty to friendship," he remarked, "is that a man should
+dare to do what he perceives is right, and thus should prove himself
+entitled to respect."
+
+"And your friends are, in consequence, to enjoy the privilege of
+attending your crucifixion one of these days!" said Norbanus.
+
+"Nonsense.  Only slaves and highwaymen are crucified."
+
+"They call any one a highwayman who is a fugitive from what our 'Roman
+Hercules' calls justice," Norbanus answered with a gesture of
+irritation.  His own trick of finishing people's sentences did not annoy
+Sextus nearly as much as Sextus's trick of pounding on inaccuracies
+irritated him.  He pressed his horse into a canter and for a while they
+rode beside the stream called the "Donkey-drowner" without further
+conversation, each man striving to subdue the ill-temper that was on the
+verge of outbreak.
+
+Romans of the old school valued inner calm as highly as they did the
+outer semblances of dignity;  even the more modern Romans imitated that
+distinctive attitude, pretending to Augustan calmness that had actually
+ceased to be a part of public life. But with Sextus and Norbanus the
+inner struggle to be self-controlled was genuine;  they bridled
+irritation in the same way that they forced their horses to obey them--
+captains of their own souls, as it were, and scornful of changefulness.
+
+Sextus, being the only son of a great landowner, and raised in the
+traditions of a secluded valley fifty leagues away from Rome, was almost
+half a priest by privilege of ancestry.  He had been educated in the
+local priestly college, had himself performed the daily sacrifices that
+tradition imposed on the heads of families and, in his father's frequent
+absence, had attended to all the details and responsibilities of
+managing a large estate.  The gods of wood and stream and dale were very
+real to him.  The daily offering, from each meal, to the manes of his
+ancestors, whose images in wax and wood and marble were preserved in the
+little chapel attached to the old brick homestead, had inspired in him a
+feeling that the past was forever present and a man's thoughts were as
+important as his deeds.
+
+Norbanus, on the other hand, a younger son of a man less amply dowered
+with wealth and traditional authority, had other reasons for adopting,
+rather than inheriting, an attitude toward life not dissimilar from that
+of Sextus.  Gods of wood and stream to him meant very little, and he had
+not family estates to hold him to the ancient views.  To him the future
+was more real than the past, which he regarded as a state of ignorance
+from which the world was tediously struggling.  But inherently he loved
+life's decencies, although he mocked their sentimental imitations;  and
+he followed Sextus--squandered hours with him, neglecting his own
+interests (which after all were nothing too important and were well
+enough looked after by a Syracusan slave), simply because Sextus was a
+manly sort of fellow whose friendship stirred in him emotions that he
+felt were satisfying.  He was a born follower. His ugly face and rather
+mirth-provoking blue eyes, the loose, beautifully balanced seat on
+horseback and the cavalry-like carriage of his shoulders, served their
+notice to the world at large that he would stick to friends of his own
+choosing and for purely personal reasons, in spite of, and in the teeth
+of anything.
+
+"As I said," remarked Sextus, "if Pertinax comes--"
+
+"He will show us how foolish a soldier can be in the arms of a woman,"
+Norbanus remarked, laughing again, glad the long silence was broken.
+
+"Orcus (the messenger of Dis, who carried dead souls to the underworld.
+The masked slaves who dragged dead gladiators out of the arena were
+disguised to represent Orcus) take his women! What I was going to say
+was, we shall learn from him the real news from Rome."
+
+"All the names of the popular dancers!"
+
+"And if Galen is there we shall learn--"
+
+"About Commodus' health.  That is more to the point.  Now if we could
+get into Galen's chest of medicines and substitute--"
+
+"Galen is an honest doctor," Sextus interrupted.  "If Galen is there we
+will find out what the philosophers are discussing in Rome when spies
+aren't listening.  Pertinax dresses himself like a strutting peacock and
+pretends that women and money are his only interests, but what the wise
+ones said yesterday, Pertinax does today;  and what they say today, he
+will do tomorrow.  He can look more like a popinjay and act more like a
+man than any one in Rome."
+
+"Who cares how they behave in Rome?  The city has gone mad," Norbanus
+answered.  "Nowadays the best a man can do is to preserve his own goods
+and his own health.  Ride to a conference do we?  Well, nothing but
+words will come of it, and words are dangerous.  I like my danger
+tangible and in the open where it can be faced.  Three times last week I
+was approached by Glyco--you remember him?--that son of Cocles and the
+Jewess--asking me to join a secret mystery of which he claims to be the
+unextinguishable lamp.  But there are too many mysteries and not enough
+plain dealing.  The only mystery about Glyco is how he avoids indictment
+for conspiracy--what with his long nose and sly eyes, and his way of
+hinting that he knows enough to turn the world upside down.  If Pertinax
+talks mystery I will class him with the other foxes who slink into holes
+when the agenda look like becoming acta.  Show me only a raised standard
+in an open field and I will take my chance beside it.  But I sicken of
+all this talk of what we might do if only somebody had the courage to
+stick a dagger into Commodus."
+
+"The men who could persuade themselves to do that, are persuaded that a
+worse brute might succeed him," Sextus answered.  "It is no use killing
+a Commodus to find a Nero in his shoes.  If the successor were in sight
+--and visibly a man not a monster--there are plenty of men brave enough
+to give the dagger-thrust.  But the praetorian guard, that makes and
+unmakes emperors, has been tasting the sweets of tyranny ever since
+Marcus Aurelius died. They despise their 'Roman Hercules' (Commodus'
+favorite name for himself)--who doesn't?  But they grow fat and enjoy
+themselves under his tyranny, so they would never consent to leaving him
+unguarded, as happened to Nero, for instance, or to replacing him with
+any one of the caliber of Aurelius, if such a man could be found."
+
+"Well, then, what do we go to talk about?" Norbanus asked.
+
+"We go for information."
+
+"Dea dia! (the most mysterious of all the Roman deities)  We inform
+ourselves that Rome has been renamed 'The City of Commodus'--that
+offices are bought and sold--that there were forty consuls in a year,
+each of whom paid for the office in turn--that no man's life is safe--
+that it is wiser to take a cold in the head to Galen than to kiss a
+mule's nose (it was a common superstition that a cold in the head could
+be cured by kissing a mule's nose)--and then what?  I begin to think
+that Pertinax is wiser to amuse himself with women after all!"
+
+Sextus edged his horse a little closer to the skewbald and for more than
+a minute appeared to be studying Norbanus' face, the other grinning at
+him and making the stallion prance.
+
+"Are you never serious?" asked Sextus.
+
+"Always and forever, melancholy friend of mine!  I seriously dread the
+consequences of that letter that you wrote to Rome! Unlike you, I have
+not much more than life to lose, but I value it all the more for being
+less encumbered.  Like Apollonius, I pray for few possessions and no
+needs!  But what I have, I treasure;  I propose to live long and make
+use of life!"
+
+"And I!" retorted Sextus.
+
+With a gesture of disgust, he turned to stare behind him at the crowd on
+its way to Daphne, making such a business of pleasure as reduced the
+pleasure to a toil of Sisyphus (who had to roll a heavy stone
+perpetually up a steep hill in the underworld. Before he reached the top
+the stone always rolled down again).
+
+"I have more than gold," said Sextus, "which it seems to me that any
+crooked-minded fool may have.  I have a spirit in me and a taste for
+philosophies;  I have a feeling that a man's life is a gift entrusted to
+him by the gods--for use--to be preserved--"
+
+"By writing foolish letters, doubtless!" said Norbanus.  "Come along,
+let us gallop.  I am weary of the backs of all these roisterers."
+
+And so they rode to Daphne full pelt, greatly to the anger of the too
+well dressed Antiochenes, who cursed them for the mud they splashed from
+wayside pools and for the dung and dust they kicked up into plucked and
+penciled faces.
+
+
+
+
+II.  A CONFERENCE AT DAPHNE
+
+
+
+It was not yet dusk.  The sun shone on the bronze roof of the temple of
+Apollo, making such a contrast to, and harmony with, marble and the
+green of giant cypresses as only music can suggest.  The dying breeze
+stirred hardly a ripple on the winding ponds, so marble columns, trees
+and statuary were reflected amid shadows of the swans in water tinted by
+the colors of the sinking sun.  There was a murmur of wind in the tops
+of the trees and a stirring of linen-clad girls near the temple
+entrance--voices droning from the near-by booths behind the shrubbery--
+one flute, like the plaint of Orpheus summoning Eurydice--a blossom-
+scented air and an enfolding mystery of silence.
+
+Pertinax, the governor of Rome, had merely hinted at Olympian desire,
+whereat some rich Antiochenes, long privileged, had been ejected with
+scant ceremony from a small marble pavilion on an islet, formed by a
+branch of the River Ladon that had been guided twenty years ago by
+Hadrian's engineers in curves of exquisitely studied beauty.  From
+between Corinthian columns was a view of nearly all the temple precincts
+and of the lawns where revelers would presently forget restraint.  The
+first night of the Daphne season usually was the wildest night of all
+the year, but they began demurely, and for the present there was the
+restraint of expectation.
+
+Because there was yet snow on mountain-tops and the balmy air would
+carry a suggestion of a chill at sunset, there were cunningly wrought
+charcoal braziers set near the gilded couches, grouped around a
+semicircular low table so as to give each guest an unobstructed view
+from the pavilion.  Pertinax--neither guest nor host, but a god, as it
+were, who had arrived and permitted the city of Antioch to ennoble
+itself by paying his expenses--stretched his long length on the middle
+couch, with Galen the physician on his right hand, Sextus on his left.
+Beyond Galen lay Tarquinius Divius and Sulpicius Glabrio, friends of
+Pertinax; and on Sextus' left was Norbanus, and beyond him Marcus Fabius
+a young tribune on Pertinax' staff.  There was only one couch
+unoccupied.
+
+Galen was an older man than Pertinax, who was already graying at the
+temples.  Galen had the wrinkled, smiling, shrewd face of an old
+philosopher who understood the trick of making himself socially
+prominent in order to pursue his calling unimpeded by the bitter
+jealousies of rivals.  He understood all about charlatanry, mocked it in
+all its disguises and knew how to defeat it with sarcastic wit.  He wore
+none of the distinguishing insignia that practising physicians usually
+favored;  the studied plainness of his attire was a notable contrast to
+the costly magnificence of Pertinax, whose double-purple-bordered and
+fringed toga, beautifully woven linen and jeweled ornaments seemed
+chosen to combine suggestions of the many public offices he had
+succeeded to.
+
+He was a tall, lean, handsome veteran with naturally curly fair hair and
+a beard that, had it been dark, would have made him look like an
+Assyrian.  There was a world of humor in his eyes, and an expression on
+his weathered face of wonder at the ways of men--an almost comical
+confession of his own inferiority of birth, combined with matter-of-fact
+ability to do whatever called for strength, endurance and mere ordinary
+common sense.
+
+"You are almost ashamed of your own good fortune," Galen told him.  "You
+wear all that jewelry, and swagger like the youngest tribune, to conceal
+your diffidence.  Being honest, you are naturally frugal;  but you are
+ashamed of your own honesty, so you imitate the court's extravagance and
+made up for it with little meannesses that comfort your sense of
+extremes.  The truth is, Pertinax, you are a man with a boy's
+enthusiasms, a boy with a man's experience."
+
+"You ought to know," said Pertinax.  "You tutored Commodus. Whoever
+could take a murderer at the age of twelve and keep him from breaking
+the heart of a Marcus Aurelius knows more about men and boys than I do."
+
+"Ah, but I failed," said Galen.  "The young Commodus was like a nibbling
+fish;  you thought you had him, but he always took the bait and left the
+hook.  The wisdom I fed to him fattened his wickedness.  If I had known
+then what I have learned from teaching Commodus and others, not even
+Marcus Aurelius could have persuaded me to undertake the task--medical
+problem though it was, and promotion though it was, and answer though it
+was to all the doctors who denounced me as a charlatan.  I bought my
+fashionable practise at the cost of knowing it was I who taught young
+Commodus the technique of wickedness by revealing to him all its
+sinuosities and how, and why, it floods a man's mind."
+
+"He was a beast in any case," said Pertinax.
+
+"Yes, but a baffled, blind beast.  I removed the bandage from his eyes."
+
+"He would have pulled it off himself."
+
+"I did it.  I turned a mere golden-haired savage into a criminal who
+knows what he is doing."
+
+"Well, drink and forget it!" said Pertinax.  "I, too, have done things
+that are best forgotten.  We attain success by learning from defeat, and
+we forget defeat in triumph.  I know of no triumph that did not blot out
+scores of worse things than defeat. When I was in Britain I subdued
+rebellion and restored the discipline of mutinying legions.  How?  I am
+not such a fool as to tell you all that happened!  When I was in Africa
+men called me a great proconsul.  So I was.  They would welcome me back
+there, if all I hear about the present man is true.  But do you suppose
+I did not fail in certain instances?  They praise me for the aqueducts I
+built, and for the peace I left along the border. But I also left dry
+bones, and sons of dead men who will teach their grandsons how to hate
+the name of Rome!  I sent a hundred thousand slaves from Africa.
+Sometimes, when I have dined unwisely and there is no Galen near to
+freshen up my belly juices, I have nightmares, in which men and women
+cry to me for water that I took from them to pour into the cities.  I
+have learned this, Galen:  Do one thing wisely and you will commit ten
+follies.  You are lucky if you have but ten failures to detract from one
+success--as lucky as a man who has but ten mistresses to interfere with
+his enjoyment of his wife!"
+
+He spoke of mistresses because the girls were coming down the temple
+steps to take part in the sunset ceremony.  The torches they carried
+were unlighted yet;  their figures, draped in linen, looked almost
+super-humanly lovely in the deepening twilight, and as they laid their
+garlands on the marble altar near the temple steps and grouped
+themselves again on either side of it their movements suggested a
+phantasmagoria fading away into infinite distance, as if all the
+universe were filled with women without age or blemish.  There began to
+be a scent of incense in the air.
+
+"We only imitate this kind of thing in Rome," said Pertinax.  "A larger
+scale, a coarser effect.  What I find thrilling is the sensation they
+contrive here of unseen mysteries.  Whereas--"
+
+"There won't be any mystery left presently!  They'll strip your last
+veil from imagination!" Sextus interrupted, laughing.  "Men say Hadrian
+tried to chasten this place, but he only made them realize the artistic
+value of an appearance of chastity, that can be thrown off.  Hark!  The
+evening hymn."
+
+The torches suddenly were lighted by attendant slaves.  The stirring,
+shaken sistra wrought a miracle of sound that set the nerves all
+tingling as the high priest, followed by his boys with swinging censers
+and the members of the priestly college, four by four, came chanting
+down the temple steps.  To an accompanying pleading, sobbing note of
+flutes the high priest laid an offering of fruit, milk, wine and honey
+in the midst of the heaped-up garlands (for Apollo was the god of all
+fertility as well as of healing and war and flocks and oracles).  Then
+came the grand Homeric hymn to Glorious Apollo, men's and boys' and
+women's voices blending in a surging paean like an ocean's music.
+
+The last notes died away in distant echoes.  There was silence for a
+hundred breaths;  then music of flute and lyre and sistra as the priests
+retreated up the temple steps followed by fanfare on a dozen trumpets as
+the door swung to behind the priests. Instantly, then, shouts of
+laughter--torchlight scattering the shadows amid gloom--green cypresses
+--fire--color splurging on the bosom of the water--babel of hundreds of
+voices as the gay Antiochenes swarmed out from behind the trees--and a
+cheer, as the girls by the altar threw their garments off and scampered
+naked along the river-bank toward a bridge that joined the temple island
+to the sloping lawns, where the crowd ran to await them.
+
+"Apollo having healed the world of sin, we now do what we like!" said
+Sextus.  "Pertinax, I pledge you continence for this one night!  Good
+Galen, may Apollo's wisdom ooze from you like sweat; for all our sakes,
+be you the arbiter of what we drink, lest drunkenness deprive us of our
+reason!  Comites, let us eat like warriors--one course, and then
+discussion of tomorrow's plan."
+
+"Your military service should have taught you more respect for your
+seniors, as well as how to eat and drink temperately," said Pertinax.
+"Will you teach your grandmother to suck eggs?  I was the first
+grammarian in Rome before you were born and a tribune before you felt
+down on your cheek.  I am the governor of Rome, my boy.  Who are you,
+that you should lecture me?"
+
+"If you call that a lecture, concede that I dared," Sextus answered.  "I
+did not flatter you by coming here, or come to flatter you.  I came
+because my father tells me you are a Roman beyond praise.  I am a Roman.
+I believe praise is worthless unless proven to the hilt--as for
+instance:  I have come to bare my thoughts to you, which is a bold
+compliment in these days of treachery."
+
+"Keep your thoughts under cover," said Pertinax, glancing at the steward
+and the slaves who were beginning to carry in the meal. But he was
+evidently pleased, and Sextus's next words pleased him more:
+
+"I am ready to do more than think about you, I will follow where you
+lead--except into licentiousness!"
+
+He lay on both elbows and stared at the scene with disgust. Naked girls,
+against a background of the torchlit water and the green and purple
+gloom of cypresses, was nothing to complain of; statuary, since it could
+not move, was not as pleasing to the eye;  but shrieks of idiotic
+laughter and debauchery of beauty sickened him.
+
+There came a series of sounds at the pavilion entrance, where a litter
+was set down on marble pavement and a eunuch's shrill voice criticized
+the slow unrolling of a carpet.
+
+"What did I warn you?" Norbanus whispered, laughing in Sextus's ear.
+
+Pertinax got to his feet, long-leggedly statuesque, and strode toward
+the antechamber on his right, whence presently he returned with a woman
+on his arm, he stroking her hand as it rested on his.  He introduced
+Sextus and Norbanus;  the others knew her; Galen greeted her with a
+wrinkled grin that seemed to imply confidence.
+
+"Now that Cornificia has come, not even Sextus need worry about our
+behavior!" said Galen, and everybody except Sextus grinned. It was
+notorious that Cornificia refined and restrained Pertinax, whereas his
+lawful wife Flavia Titiana merely drove him to extremes.
+
+This Roman Aspasia had an almost Grecian face, beneath a coiled
+extravagance of dark brown hair.  Her violet eyes were quietly
+intelligent;  her dress plain white and not elaborately fringed, with
+hardly any jewelry.  She cultivated modesty and all the older graces
+that had grown unfashionable since the Emperor Marcus Aurelius died.  In
+all ways, in fact, she was the opposite of Flavia Titiana--it was hard
+to tell whether from natural preference or because the contrast to his
+wife's extremes of noisy gaiety and shameless license gave her a
+stronger hold on Pertinax.  Rome's readiest slanderers had nothing
+scandalous to tell of Cornificia, whereas Flavia Titiana's inconstancies
+were a by-word.
+
+She refused to let Galen yield the couch on Pertinax's right hand but
+took the vacant one at the end of the half-moon table, saying she
+preferred it--which was likely true enough;  it gave her a view of all
+the faces without turning her head or appearing to stare.
+
+For a long time there was merely desultory conversation while the feast,
+restricted within moderate proportions by request of Pertinax, was
+brought on.
+
+There were eels, for which Daphne was famous;  alphests and callichthys;
+pompilos, a purple fish, said to have been born from sea-foam at the
+birth of Aphrodite;  boops and bedradones; gray mullet;  cuttle-fish;
+tunny-fish and mussels.  Followed in their order pheasants, grouse,
+swan, peacock and a large pig stuffed with larks and mincemeat.  Then
+there were sweetmeats of various kinds, and a pudding invented in
+Persia, made with honey and dates, with a sauce of frozen cream and
+strawberries.  By Galen's order only seven sorts of wine were served, so
+when the meal was done the guests were neither drunk nor too well fed to
+carry on a conference.
+
+No entertainers were provided.  Normally the space between the table and
+the front of the pavilion would have been occupied by acrobats, dancers
+and jugglers;  but Pertinax dismissed even the impudent women who came
+to lean elbows on the marble railing and sing snatches of suggestive
+song.  He sent slaves to stand outside and keep the crowd away, his
+lictor and his personal official bodyguard being kept out of sight in a
+small stone house near the pavilion kitchen at the rear among the trees,
+in order not to arouse unwelcome comment.  It was known he was in
+Daphne; there was even a subdued expectation in Antioch that his
+unannounced visit portended the extortion of extra tribute.  The Emperor
+Commodus was known to be in his usual straits for money. Given a
+sufficient flow of wine, the sight of bodyguard and lictor might have
+been enough to start a riot, the Antiochenes being prone to outbreak
+when their passions were aroused by drink and women.
+
+There was a long silence after Pertinax had dismissed the steward.
+Galen's old personal attendant took charge of the amphora of snow-cooled
+Falernian;  he poured for each in turn and then retired into a corner to
+be out of earshot, or at any rate to emphasize that what he might hear
+would not concern him. Pertinax strolled to the front of the pavilion
+and looked out to make sure there were no eavesdroppers, staring for a
+long time at the revelry that was warming up into an orgy.  They were
+dancing in rings under the moon, their shadowy figures rendered weird by
+smoky torchlight.  Cornificia at last broke on his reverie:
+
+"You wish to join them, Pertinax?  That would dignify even our Roman
+Hercules--to say nothing of you!"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, but his eyes were glittering.
+
+"If Marcia could govern Commodus as you rule me, he would be safer on
+the throne!" he answered, coming to sit upright on the couch beside her.
+It was evident that he intended that speech to release all tongues;  he
+looked from face to face expectantly, but no one spoke until Cornificia
+urged him to protect himself against the night breeze.  He threw a
+purple-bordered cloak over his shoulders.  It became him;  he looked so
+official in it, and majestic, that even Sextus--rebel that he was
+against all modern trumpery--forebore to break the silence.  It was
+Galen who spoke next:
+
+"Pertinax, if you might choose an emperor, whom would you nominate?
+Remember:  He must be a soldier, used to the stench of marching legions.
+None could govern Rome whose nose goes up in the air at the smell of
+sweat and garlic."
+
+There was a murmur of approval.  Cornificia stroked the long, strong
+fingers of the man she idolized.  Sextus gave rein to his impulse then,
+brushing aside Norbanus' hand that warned him to bide his time:
+
+"Many more than I," he said, "are ready to throw in our lot with you,
+Pertinax--aye, unto death!  You would restore Rome's honor. I believe my
+father could persuade a hundred noblemen to take your part, if you would
+lead.  I can answer for five or six men of wealth and influence, not
+reckoning a friend or two who--"
+
+"Why talk foolishness!" said Pertinax.  "The legions will elect
+Commodus' successor.  They will sell Rome to the highest bidder,
+probably;  and though they like me as a soldier they dislike my
+discipline.  I am the governor of Rome and still alive in spite of it
+because even Commodus' informers know it would be silly to accuse me of
+intrigue.  Not even Commodus would listen to such talk.  I lead the gay
+life, for my own life's sake.  All know me as a roisterer.  I am said to
+have no ambition other than to live life sensuously."
+
+Galen laughed.
+
+"That may deceive Commodus," he said.  "The thoughtful Romans know you
+as a frugal governor, who stamped out plague and--"
+
+"You did that," said Pertinax.
+
+"Who enabled me?"
+
+"It was a simple thing to have the tenements burned.  Besides, it
+profited the city--new streets;  and there was twice the amount of tax
+on the new tenements they raised.  I, personally, made a handsome profit
+on the purchase of a few burned houses."
+
+"And as the governor who broke the famine," Galen continued.
+
+"That was simple enough, but you may as well thank Cornificia. She found
+out through the women who the men were who were holding corn for
+speculation.  All I did was to hand their names to Commodus;  he
+confiscated all the corn and sold it--at a handsome profit to himself,
+since it had cost him nothing!"
+
+"While we sit here and cackle like Asian birds, Commodus renames Rome
+the City of Commodus and still lives!" Sextus grumbled.
+
+"Nor can he be easily got rid of," remarked Daedalus the tribune. "He
+goes to and fro from the palace through underground tunnels. Men sleep
+in his room who are all involved with him in cruelties and infamy, so
+they guard him carefully.  Besides, whoever tried to murder him would
+probably kill Paulus by mistake!  The praetorian guard is contented,
+being well paid and permitted all sorts of privileges.  Who can get past
+the praetorian guard?"
+
+"Any one!" said Pertinax.  "The point is not, who shall kill Commodus?
+But who shall be raised in his place?  There are thirty thousand ways to
+kill a man.  Ask Galen!"
+
+Old Galen laughed at that.
+
+"As many ways as there are stars in heaven;  but the stars have their
+say in the matter!  None can kill a man until his destiny says yes to
+it.  Not even a doctor," he added, chuckling. "Otherwise the doctors
+would have killed me long ago with jealousy!  A man dies when his inner
+man grows sick and weary of him.  Then a pin-prick does it, or a sudden
+terror.  Until that time comes you may break his skull, and do not more
+than spoil his temper!  As a philosopher I have learned two things:
+respect many, but trust few.  But as a doctor I have learned only one
+thing for certain:  that no man actually dies until his soul is tired of
+him."
+
+"Whose soul should grow sick sooner than that of Commodus?" asked
+Sextus.
+
+"Not if his soul is evil and delights in evil--as his does!" Galen
+retorted.  "If he should turn virtuous, then perhaps, yes. But in that
+case we should wish him to live, although his soul would prefer the
+contrary and leave him to die by the first form of death that should
+appear--in spite of all the doctors and the guards and tasters of the
+royal food."
+
+"Some one should convert him then!" said Sextus.  "Cornificia, can't
+Marcia make a Christian of him;  Christians pretend to oppose all the
+infamies he practises.  It would be a merry joke to have a Christian
+emperor, who died because his soul was sick of him!  It would be a
+choice jest--he being the one who has encouraged Christianity by
+reversing all Marcus Aurelius' wise precautions against their seditious
+blasphemy!"
+
+"You speak fanatically, but you have touched the heart of the problem,"
+said Cornificia.  "It is Marcia who makes life possible for Commodus--
+Marcia and her Christians.  They help Marcia protect him because he is
+the only emperor who never persecuted them, and because Marcia sees to
+it that they are free to meet together without having even to bribe the
+police.  There is only one way to get rid of Commodus:  Persuade Marcia
+that her own life is in danger from him, and that she will have a full
+voice in nominating his successor."
+
+"Probably true," remarked Pertinax.  "Whom would she nominate? That is
+the point."
+
+"It would be simpler to kill Marcia," said Daedalus.  "Thereafter let
+things take their course.  Without Marcia to protect him--"
+
+"No man knows much," Galen interrupted.  "Marcia's soul may be all the
+soul Commodus has!  If she should grow sick of him--!"
+
+"She grew sick long ago," said Cornificia.  "But she is forever thinking
+of her Christians and knows no other way to protect them than to make
+Commodus love her.  Ugh!  It is like the story of Andromeda.  Who is to
+act Perseus?"
+
+(In the fable, Andromeda had to be chained to a cliff to be devoured by
+a monster, in order to save her people from the anger of the god
+Poseidon.  Perseus slew the monster.)
+
+"There are thirty thousand ways of killing," Pertinax repeated, "but if
+we kill one monster, four or five others will fight for his place,
+unless, like Perseus, we have the head of a Medusa with which to freeze
+them into stone!  There is no substitute for Commodus in sight.  The
+only man whose face would freeze all rivals is Severus the
+Carthaginian!"
+
+"We are none of us blind," said Cornificia.
+
+"You mean me?  I am too old," answered Pertinax.  "I don't like tyranny,
+and people know it.  It is something they should not know.  An old man
+may be all very well when he has reigned for twenty years and men are
+used to him, and he used to the task, as was Augustus;  but an old man
+new to the throne lacks energy. And besides, they would never endure a
+man whose father was a charcoal-seller, as mine was.  I have made my way
+in life by looking at facts and refusing to deceive myself;  with the
+exception of that, I have no especial wisdom, nor any unusual ability."
+
+"If wisdom were all that is needed," said Sextus, "we should put good
+Galen on the throne!"
+
+"He is too old and wise to let you try to do it!"  Galen answered.  "But
+you spoke about the head of a Medusa, Pertinax, and mentioned Lucius
+Septimius Severus.  He commands three legions at Caruntum in Pannonia.
+(Roughly speaking, the S.W. portion of modern Hungary whose frontiers
+were then occupied by very warlike tribes.)  If there is one man living
+who can freeze men's blood by scowling at them, it is he!  And he is not
+as old as you are."
+
+"I have thought of him only to hate him," said Pertinax.  "He would not
+follow me, nor I him.  He is one of three men who would fight for the
+throne if somebody slew Commodus, although he would not run the risk of
+slaying him himself, and he would betray us if we should take him into
+confidence.  I know him well.  He is a lawyer and a Carthaginian.  He
+would never ask for the nomination;  he is too crafty.  He would say his
+legions nominated him against his will and that to have disobeyed them
+would have laid him open to the punishment for treason.  (This is what
+Severus actually did, later on, after Pertinax's death.) The other two
+are Pescennius Niger, who commands the legions in Syria, and Clodius
+Albinus who commands in Britain.  We must find a man who can forestall
+all three of them by winning, first, the praetorian guard, and then the
+senate and the Romans by dint of sound reforms and justice."
+
+"You are he!  Rome trusts you.  So does the senate," said Cornificia.
+"Marcia trusts me.  The praetorian guard trusts her. If I can persuade
+Marcia that her life is in danger from Commodus--"
+
+"But how?" Daedalus interrupted.
+
+"We can take the praetorian guard by surprise," Cornificia went on,
+ignoring him.  "They can be tricked into declaring for the man whom
+Marcia's friends nominate.  Having once declared for him they will be
+too proud of having made an emperor, and too unwilling to seem
+vacillating, to reverse themselves in any man's favor, even though he
+should command six legions.  The senate will gladly accept one who has
+governed Rome as frugally as Pertinax has done.  If the senate confirms
+the nominee of the praetorian guard, the Roman populace will do the rest
+by acclamation.  Then, three months of upright government--deification
+by the senate--"
+
+Pertinax laughed explosively--an honest, chesty laugh, unqualified by
+any subtleties, suggesting a trace of the peasantry from which he
+sprang.  It made Cornificia wince.
+
+"Can you imagine me a god?" he asked.
+
+"I can imagine you an emperor," said Sextus.  "It is true;  you have no
+following among the legions just at present.  But I make one, and there
+are plenty of energetic men who think as I do.  My friend Norbanus here
+will follow me.  My father--"
+
+
+Noises near the open window interrupted him.  An argument seemed to be
+going on between the slaves whom Pertinax had set to keep the roisterers
+away and some one who demanded admission.  Near at hand was a woman's
+voice, shrilling and scolding.  Then another voice--Scylax, the slave
+who had ridden the red mare.  Pertinax strode to the window again and
+leaned out.  Cornificia whispered to Galen:
+
+"If the truth were known, he is afraid of Flavia Titiana.  As a wife she
+is bad enough, but as an empress--"
+
+Galen nodded.
+
+"If you love your Pertinax," he answered, "keep him off the throne!  He
+has too many scruples."
+
+She frowned, having few, which were firm and entirely devoted to
+Pertinax' fortune.
+
+"Love him?  I would give him up to see him deified!" she whispered;  and
+again Galen nodded, deeply understanding.
+
+"That is because you have never had children," he assured her, smiling.
+"You mother Pertinax, who is more than twice your age--just as Marcia
+has mothered that monster Commodus until her heart is breaking."
+
+"But I thought you were Pertinax' friend?"
+
+"So I am."
+
+"And his urgent adviser to--"
+
+"Yes, so I was.  I have changed my opinion;  only the maniacs never do
+that.  Pertinax would make a splendid minister for Lucius Severus;  and
+the two of them could bring back the Augustan days.  Persuade him to it.
+He must forget he hates him."
+
+"Let him come!" said the voice of Pertinax.  He was still leaning out,
+with one hand on a marble pillar, much more interested in the moonlit
+view of revelry than in the altercation between slaves.  He strolled
+back and stood smiling at Cornificia, his handsome face expressing
+satisfaction but a rather humorous amusement at his inability to
+understand her altogether.
+
+"Are you like all other women?" he asked.  "I just saw a naked woman
+stab a man with her hairpin and kick his corpse into the shrubbery
+before the breath was out of it!"
+
+"Galen has deserted you," said Cornificia.  The murder was
+uninteresting;  nobody made any comment.
+
+"Not he!" Pertinax answered, and went and sat on Galen's couch. "You
+find me not man enough for the senate to make a god of me--is that it,
+Galen?"
+
+"Too much of a man to be an emperor," said Galen, smiling amid wrinkles.
+"By observing a man's virtues one may infer what his faults are.  You
+would try to rule the empire honestly, which is impossible.  A more
+dishonest man would let it rule itself and claim the credit, whereas you
+would give the praise to others, who would shoulder off the work and all
+the blame on to you.  An empire is like a human body, which heals itself
+if the head will let it.  Too many heads--a conference of doctors--and
+the patient dies!  One doctor, doing nothing with an air of confidence,
+and the patient gets well!  There, I have told you more than all the
+senate knows!"
+
+
+Came Scylax, out of breath, less menial than most men's slaves, his head
+and shoulders upright and the hand that held a letter thrust well
+forward as if what he had to do were more important than the way he did
+it.
+
+"This came," he said, standing beside Sextus' couch.  "Cadmus brought
+it, running all the way from Antioch."
+
+His hand was trembling;  evidently Cadmus had by some means learned the
+contents of the letter and had told.
+
+"I and Cadmus--" he said, and then hesitated.
+
+"What?"
+
+"--are faithful, no matter what happens."
+
+Scylax stood erect with closed lips.  Sextus broke the seal, merely
+glancing at Pertinax, taking permission for granted.  He frowned as he
+read, bit his lip, his face growing crimson and white alternately.  When
+he had mastered himself he handed the letter to Pertinax.
+
+"I always supposed you protected my father," he said, struggling to
+appear calm.  But his eyes gave the story away--grieved, mortified,
+indignant.  Scylax offered him his arm to lean on. Norbanus, setting
+both hands on his shoulders from behind, obliged him to sit down.
+
+"Calm!" Norbanus whispered, "Calm!  Your friends are your friends.  What
+has happened?"
+
+Pertinax read the letter and passed it to Cornificia, then paced the
+floor with hands behind him.
+
+"Is that fellow to be trusted?" he asked with a jerk of his head toward
+Scylax.  He seemed nearly as upset as Sextus was.
+
+Sextus nodded, not trusting himself to speak, knowing that if he did he
+would insult a man who might be guiltless in spite of appearances.
+
+"Commodus commanded me to visit Antioch, as he said, for a rest," said
+Pertinax.  "The public excuse was, that I should look into the
+possibility of holding the Olympic games here.  Strangely enough, I
+suspected nothing.  He has been flatteringly friendly of late.  Those
+whom I requested him to spare, he spared, even though their names were
+on his proscription list and I had not better excuse than that they had
+done no wrong!  The day before I left I brought a list to him of names
+that I commended to his favor--your father's name among them, Sextus."
+
+Pertinax turned his back again and strode toward the window, where he
+stood like a statue framed in the luminous gloom.  The only part of him
+that moved was his long fingers, weaving together behind him until the
+knuckles cracked.
+
+Cornificia, subduing her contralto voice, read the letter aloud:
+
+
+"To Nimius Secundus Sextus, son of Galienus Maximus, the freedman Rufus
+Glabrio sends humble greeting.
+
+"May the gods give solace and preserve you.  Notwithstanding all your
+noble father's piety--his respect for elders and superiors--he was
+accused of treason and of blasphemy toward the emperor, by whose orders
+he was seized yesterday and beheaded the same day. The estates have
+already been seized.  It is said they will be sold to Asinus Sejanus,
+who is probably the source of the accusation against your father.
+
+"I and three other freedmen made our escape and will attempt to reach
+Tarentum, where we will await instructions from you. Titus, the son of
+the freedman Paulinus, will convey this letter to Brundisium and thence
+by boat to Dyrrachium, whence he will send it by post in the charge of a
+Jew whom he says he can trust.
+
+"It is a certainty that orders will go forth to seize yourself, since
+the estates in Antioch are known to be of great value. Therefore, we
+your true friends and devoted servants, urge you to make all speed in
+escaping.  Stay not to make provision for yourself, but travel without
+encumbrances.  Hide!  Hasten!
+
+"We commend this letter to you as a sure proof that we ourselves are to
+be trusted, since, if it should fall into the hands of an informer by
+the way, our lives undoubtedly would pay the forfeit. We have not much
+money, but enough for the expenses of a journey to a foreign land.  The
+place where we will hide near Tarentum is known to you.  In deep
+anxiety, and not without such sacrifices to the gods and to the manes of
+your noble ancestors as means permit, we will await your coming."
+--RUFUS GLABRIO "Freedman of the illustrious Galienus Maximus."
+
+Pertinax turned from the window.  "The Jews have a saying," he said,
+"that who keepeth his mouth and his tongue, keepeth his soul from
+trouble.  Often I warned Maximus that he was too free with his speech.
+He counted too much on my protection.  Now it remains to be seen whether
+Commodus has not proscribed me!"
+
+Sextus and Norbanus stood together, Scylax behind them, Norbanus
+whispering;  plainly enough Norbanus was urging patience--discretion--
+deliberate thought, whereas Sextus could hardly think at all for anger
+that reddened his eyes.
+
+"What can I do for you?  What can I do?" wondered Pertinax.
+
+Then Cornificia was on her feet.
+
+"There is nothing--nothing you can do!" she insisted.  She avoided
+Galen's eyes;  the old philosopher was watching her as if she were the
+subject of some new experiment.  "Let Commodus learn as much as that
+Sextus was here in this pavilion and--"
+
+Sextus interrupted, very proudly:
+
+"I will not endanger my friends.  Who will lend me a dagger? This toy
+that I wear is too short and not sharp.  You may forget me, Pertinax.
+My slaves will bury me.  But play you the man and save Rome!"
+
+Then the tribune spoke up.  He was younger than all of them.
+
+"Sextus is right.  They will know he was here.  They will probably
+torture his slaves and learn about that letter that has reached him.  If
+he runs and hides, we shall all be accused of having helped him to
+escape;  whereas--"
+
+"What?"  Galen asked him as he hesitated.
+
+"If he dies by his own hand, he will not only save all his slaves from
+the torture but remove the suspicion from us and we will still be free
+to mature our--"
+
+"Cowardice!"  Norbanus finished the sentence for him.
+
+"Aye, some of us would hardly feel like noble Romans!" Pertinax said
+grimly.  "Possibly I can protect you, Sextus.  Let us think of some
+great favor you can do the emperor, providing an excuse for me to
+interfere.  I might even take you to Rome with me and--"
+
+Galen laughed, and Cornificia drew in her breath, bit her lip.
+
+"Why do you laugh, Galen?" Pertinax strode over to him and stood
+staring.
+
+"Because," said Galen, "I know so little after all.  I cannot tell a
+beast's blood from a man's.  Our Commodus would kill you with all the
+more peculiar enjoyment because he has flattered you so often publicly
+and called you 'father Pertinax.'  He poisoned his own father;  why not
+you?  They will tell him you have frequently befriended Sextus.  They
+will show him Sextus' father's name on that list of names that you
+commended to his favor.  Do you follow me?"
+
+"By Jupiter, not I!" said Pertinax.
+
+"He is sure to learn about this letter that has come." said Galen.  "If
+you, in fearful loyalty to Commodus, should instantly attempt to make a
+prisoner of Sextus;  if, escaping, he is killed, and you bear witness--
+that would please Commodus almost as much as to see gladiators killed in
+the arena.  If you wept over the death of Sextus, that would please him
+even more.  He would enjoy your feelings.  Do you remember how he picked
+two gladiators who were brothers twins they were--and when the slayer of
+his twin-brother saluted, Commodus got down into the arena and kissed
+him?  You yourself must announce to him the news of Sextus' death, and
+he will kiss you also!"
+
+"Vale!" remarked Sextus.  "I die willingly enough."
+
+"You are dead already," Galen answered.  "Didn't Pertinax see some one's
+body kicked into the bushes?"
+
+There was silence.  They all glanced at one another.  Only Galen,
+sipping at his wine, seemed philosophically calm.
+
+"I personally should not be an eye-witness," Galen remarked.  "I am a
+doctor, whose certificate of death not even Commodus would doubt.  In
+the dark I might recognize Sextus' garments, even though I could not see
+his features.  And--" he added pointedly--"neither I nor any one can
+tell a beast's blood from a man's."
+
+"Daedalus!" said Pertinax with sudden resolution.  "Get my purse. My
+slave has it.  Sextus shall not go empty-handed."
+
+
+
+
+III.  MATERNUS-LATRO
+
+
+
+Sorbanus brought the skewbald stallion.  Not far away a group of women
+danced around a dozen drunken men, who sang uproariously. Seen against
+the background of purple and dark-green gloom, with crimson torchlight
+flaring on the quiet water and the moon descending behind trees beyond
+them, they were mystically beautiful--seemed not to belong to earth, any
+more than the pan-pipe music did.
+
+"Ride into their midst!" Norbanus urged, pointing.  "Tickle the stallion
+thus."
+
+The Cappadocian lashed out savagely.
+
+"Here is a bottle of goat's blood.  I will bring weapons, and I will
+join you as soon as possible after I have made sure that the temple
+priests, and all Daphne, are positive about your death. Now mount and
+ride!"
+
+Sextus swung on to the stallion's back as if a catapult had thrown him.
+Until then he had let others do the ordering;  he had preferred to let
+them take their own precautions, form their own plans and subject
+himself to any course they wished, after which he should be free to face
+his destiny and fight it without feeling he had handicapped his friends
+by wilfulness.  He had not even issued a direct command to Scylax, his
+own slave.  That was characteristic of him.  Nor was it at his
+suggestion that Norbanus volunteered to share his outlawry.  But it was
+also characteristic that he made no gesture of dissent;  he accepted
+Norbanus' loyalty with a quiet smile that rather scorned words as
+unnecessary.
+
+Now he drove his heels into the Cappadocian with vigor, for the die was
+cast.  The stallion, impatient of new mastery, reared and plunged,
+snorted, came back on the bit in an attempt to get it in his teeth, and
+bolted straight for the group of roisterers, who scattered away, men
+swearing, women screaming.  Throwing back his weight against the reins,
+he brought the stallion to a plunging, snorting, wheeling halt in the
+midst of men and women--a terrifying monster blowing clouds of mist out
+of his nostrils! As they ran he let the brute rear--pulled him over--
+rolled from under him, and lay still, with goat's blood from the broken
+bottle splashed around his face and seeming to flow from his mouth.  One
+woman stooped to look, groped for a purse or anything of value, screamed
+and ran.
+
+"Sextus!" she yelled.  "Sextus who was dining in the white pavilion!"
+
+Sextus crawled among the oleanders.  Presently Norbanus came, hurrying
+out of gloom, accompanied by Cadmus, the slave who had brought from
+Antioch the letter that came from Rome.  They were dragging a body
+between them.  They laid it down exactly where Sextus had fallen from
+the horse.  There was a sickening thwack as Cadmus made the face
+unrecognizable.  Then came the lanky, hurrying figure of Pertinax
+leading a group of people, Cornificia among them--Galen last.
+
+Sextus lay still until all their backs were toward him.  Then he crept
+out of the oleanders and walked along the river-bank in no haste,
+masking his face with a fold of his toga.  He chose a path that wound
+amid the shrubbery, where marble satyrs grinned in colored lantern
+light.  He had to avoid couples here and there. A woman followed him,
+laying a hand on his arm;  he struck her, and she ran off, screaming for
+her bully.
+
+Presently he reached the winding track that led toward the high-road,
+with the gloom of cypresses on either hand and, beyond that, the glow of
+the lights in the caterers' booths.  He was as safe now as if he were
+fifty miles away;  none noticed him except the beggars at the bridges,
+who exposed maimed limbs and whined for charity.  A leper, banking on
+his only stock in trade--the dread men had of his affliction--cursed
+him.
+
+"You waste breath," said Sextus and passed on.  He was smiling to
+himself--sardonically.  "Lepers live by threats--" he thought.
+
+No more than any leper now could he expect protection from society
+beyond what he could force society to yield.  He had no name, for he was
+dead;  that thought amused him.  Suddenly it dawned on him how safe he
+was, since none in Antioch would dare to question the word of Pertinax,
+backed by Galen and all the witnesses whom Pertinax would be sure to
+summon.  He remembered then to protect the honest freedmen who had sent
+him warning--strode to a fire near a caterer's booth and burned the
+letter, stared at by the slaves who warmed their shins around the
+embers.
+
+One of those might have recognized him, in spite of the toga drawn over
+his face.
+
+"If any one should ask which way Maternus went, say I have gone home,"
+he commanded, and strode away into the gloom.
+
+He wondered why he had chosen the name Maternus.  Not even his remotest
+ancestor had borne it, yet it came to his lips as naturally, instantly,
+as if it were his own by right.  But as he walked away it came to mind
+that ten, or possibly twelve, nights ago he and his friends had all been
+talking of a highwayman Maternus, who had robbed the caravans on the
+mountain road from Tarsus.  For the moment that thought scared him.
+Should he change the name?  The slaves by the embers had stared;  they
+showed him respect, but there was a distinct sensation mingled with it--
+hardly to be wondered at!  Where was it he heard--who told him--that
+Maternus had been caught?  He could not remember.
+
+It dawned on him how difficult it is to decide what to do when the old
+familiar conditions and the expectations on which we habitually base
+decisions are all suddenly stripped away.  He understood now how a
+general in the field can fail when suddenly confronted with the unknown.
+Shall he do this, or do that? There was not a habit or a circumstance to
+guide him.  He must choose, the while the gods looked on and laughed!
+
+Maternus.  It was a strange name to adopt, and yet he liked the sound of
+it, nor would it pass out of his mind.  He tried to think of other
+names, but either they had all been borne by slaves, and were
+distasteful, or else by famous men or by his friends, whom he did not
+propose to wrong;  he only had to imagine his case reversed to realize
+how bitterly he would resent it if an outlawed man should take his own
+name and make it notorious.
+
+Yet he perceived that notoriety would be his only refuge, paradox though
+that might be.  As a mere fugitive, anonymous and having no more object
+than to live and avoid recognition, he would soon reach the end of his
+tether;  there was little mercy in the world for men without a home or
+means.  Whether recognized or not, he would become like a hunted animal
+--might, in fact, end as a slave unless he should prefer to prove his
+identity and submit to Commodus's executioners.  Suicide would be
+preferable to that; but it seemed almost as if the gods themselves had
+vetoed self-destruction by providing that roisterer's corpse at the
+critical moment and putting the plan for its use into Galen's wise old
+head.
+
+He must take the field like Spartacus of old;  but he must have a goal
+more definite and more attainable than Spartacus had had. He must avoid
+the mistake that weakened Spartacus, of accepting for the sake of
+numbers any ally who might offer himself.  He would have nothing
+whatever to do with the rabble of runaway slaves, whose only guiding
+impulse would be loot and license, although he knew how easy it would be
+to raise such an army if he should choose to do it.  Out of any hundred
+outlaws in the records of a hundred years, some ninety-nine had come to
+grief through the increasing numbers of their following and lack of
+discipline;  he could think of a dozen who had been betrayed by paid
+informers of the government, posing as friendly brigands.
+
+And besides, he had no intention of adopting brigandry as a profession,
+though he realized that he must make a reputation as a brigand if he
+hoped to be anything else than a helpless fugitive.  As a rebel against
+Commodus it might be possible to raise a good-sized army in a month or
+two, but that would only serve to bring the Roman armies out of camp,
+led by generals eager for cheap victories.  He must be too resourceful
+to be taken by police--too insignificant to tempt the legions out of
+camp.  Brigandry was as distasteful to him and as far beneath his
+dignity as the pursuit of brigands was beneath the dignity of any of
+those Roman generals who owed their rank to Commodus.  For them, as for
+himself, the pettiness of brigandry led nowhither. Only one object
+appealed to them--fame and its perquisites.  Only one object appealed to
+himself:  to redeem his estates and to avenge his father.  That could be
+accomplished only by the death of Commodus:  He laughed, as he thought
+of himself pitted alone against Commodus the deified, mad monster who
+could marshal the resources of the Roman empire!
+
+Such thoughts filled his mind until he reached the lonely cross-road,
+where the narrower, tree-lined road to Daphne met the great main highway
+leading northward over the mountains.  There was the usual row of
+gibbets reared on rising ground against the sky by way of grim reminder
+to slaves and other would-be outlaws that the arm of Rome was long, not
+merciful.  Five of the gibbets were vacant, except for an arm on one of
+them, that swayed in the wind as it hung by a cord from the wrist.  The
+sixth had a man on it--dead.
+
+
+Scylax, who was waiting for him, rode out of the gloom on the mare,
+leading the Cappadocian, and reined in near the gibbet, not quite sure
+yet who it was who strode toward him.  Scared by the stench, the horses
+became difficult to manage.  The leading-rein passed around one of the
+gibbets.  Sextus ran forward to help. The Cappadocian broke the rein and
+Scylax galloped after him.
+
+So Sextus stood alone beside the rough-hewn tree-trunk, to which was
+tied the body of a man who had been dead, perhaps, since sunset.  He had
+not been torn yet by the vultures.  Morbid curiosity--a fellow feeling
+for a victim, as the man might well be, of the same injustice that had
+made an outlaw of himself--impelled Sextus to step closer.  He could not
+see the face, which was drooped forward;  but there was a parchment,
+held spread on a stick, like a sail on a spar, suspended from the man's
+neck by a string.  He snatched it off and held it toward the moon, now
+low on the horizon.  There were only two words, smeared with red paint
+by a forefinger, underneath the official letters S.P.Q.R.:
+
+"Maternus-Latro."
+
+He began to wonder who Maternus might have been, and how he took the
+first step that had led to crucifixion.  It was hard to believe that any
+man would run that risk unless impelled to it by some injustice that had
+changed pride into savagery or else shot off all opportunity for decent
+living.  The cruelty of the form of execution hardly troubled him;  the
+possible injustice of it stirred him to his depths.  He felt a sort of
+superstitious reverence for the victim, increased by the strange
+coincidence that he had made use, without previous reflection, of
+Maternus' name.
+
+Presently he saw Norbanus riding the horse that he himself had ridden
+that afternoon from Antioch to Daphne, followed on a mule by Cadmus, the
+slave who had brought the letter which had pulled the trigger that set
+the catapults of destiny in motion.  Making a wide circuit, they helped
+Scylax catch the Cappadocian.
+
+Norbanus came cantering back.  He was dressed for the road in a brown
+woolen tunic contributed by some one in Pertinax' suite. He shook a bag
+of money.
+
+"Cornificia was generous," he said. "Old Pertinax thought he had done
+well enough by you.  She cried shame on him and threatened to send for
+her jewelry.  So he borrowed money from the priests. You are as dead as
+that."  He looked up at the tortured body of the robber.  "What name
+will you take?  We had better begin to get used to it."
+
+"It is written here," said Sextus, showing him the parchment. But the
+moon had gone down in a smother of silvery cloud; Norbanus could not see
+to read.  "I am Maternus-Latro."
+
+"I was told they had crucified that fellow."
+
+"This is Maternus.  Being dead, he will hardly grudge me the use of his
+name!  However, I will pay him for it.  He shall have fair burial.  Help
+me down with him."
+
+Norbanus beckoned to the slaves, who tied the horses to a near-by tree.
+They sought in the dark for a hole that would do for a grave, since they
+had no burying tools, stumbling on a limestone slab at last, that lay
+amid rank weeds near a tomb hollowed out of the rock that had been
+rifled, very likely, centuries ago. They lowered the already stiffened
+body into it, with a coin in its fingers for Charon's ferry-fare across
+the Styx, then set the heavy slab in place, all four of them using their
+utmost strength.
+
+Then Sextus, having poured a little water from his hollowed hands on to
+the slab, because he had no oil, and having murmured fragments of a
+ritual as old as Rome, bidding the gods of earth and air and the unseen
+re-absorb into themselves what man no longer could perceive or cherish
+or destroy, turned to the two slaves.
+
+"Scylax," he said, "Cadmus--he who was your master is as dead as that
+man we have buried.  I am not Sextus, son of Maximus.  I fare forth like
+a dead man on an unknown road, now being without honor on the lips of
+men.  Nor have I any claim on you, being now an outlaw, whom the law
+would crucify if ill-luck should betray my feet.  Nor can I set you
+free, since all my household doubtless is already confiscated;  ye
+belong by law to whomsoever Commodus may have appointed to receive my
+goods.  Do then at your own risk, of your own will, what seems good to
+you."
+
+Being slaves, they knelt.  He bade them rise.
+
+"We follow you," said Scylax, Cadmus murmuring assent.
+
+"Then the night bear witness!" Sextus turned toward the row of gibbets,
+pointing at them.  "That is the risk we take together. If we escape
+that, you shall not go unrewarded from the fortune I redeem.  Norbanus,
+you accept my leadership?"
+
+Norbanus chuckled.
+
+"I insist on it!" he answered.  He, too, pointed at the row of gibbets.
+"To be frightened will provide us with no armor against destiny!  There
+was little I had to lose;  lo, I have left that for the mice to nibble!
+Let us see what destiny can do to bold men!  Lead on, Sextus!"
+
+
+
+
+IV.  THE GOVERNORS OF ROME AND ANTIOCH
+
+
+
+Dawn was sparkling on the mountain peaks;  the misty violet of half-
+light crept into the passes and the sun already bathed the copper roofs
+of Antioch in gleaming gold above a miracle of greenery and marble.
+Like a sluggish, muddy stream with camel's heads afloat in it, the
+south-bound caravan poured up against the city gate and spread itself to
+await inspection by the tax-gatherers, the governor's representatives
+and the police.  There was a tedious procedure of examination, hindered
+by the swarms of gossipers, the merchants' agents, smugglers, and the
+men to whom the latest news meant livelihood, who streamed out of the
+city gate and mingled with the new-comers from Asia, Bythinia, Pontus,
+Pisidia, Galatia and Cappadocia.
+
+The caravan guards piled their spears and breakfasted apart, their duty
+done.  They had the air of men to whom the constantly repeated marches
+to and fro on the selfsame stage of a mountainous road had grown
+displeasing and devoid of all romance. Two were wounded.  One, with a
+dent in the helmet that hung from his arm by the chin-strap, lay leaning
+against a rock;  refused food, and slowly bled to death, his white face
+almost comically disappointed.
+
+A military tribune, followed by a slave with tablets, and by a mounted
+trooper for the sake of his official dignity, rode out from the city and
+took the report from the guards' decurion, a half-breed Dacian-Italian,
+black-bearded and taciturn, who dictated it to the slave in curt,
+staccato sentences, grudging the very gesture that he made toward the
+wounded men.  The tribune glanced at the report, signed it, turned his
+horse and rode into the city, disregarding the decurion's salute, his
+military cloak a splash of very bright red, seen against the limestone
+and above the predominant brown of the camels and coats of their owners.
+He cantered his horse when he passed through the gate, and there went up
+a clamor of newsy excitement behind him as group after group loosed
+tongues in competition of exaggeration.
+
+Being bad, the news spread swiftly.  The quadruple lines of columns all
+along the Corso, as the four-mile-long main thoroughfare was called,
+began to look like pier-piles in a flowing tide of men.  Yellow, blue,
+red, striped and parti-colored costumes, restless as the flotsam on a
+mill-race, swirled into patterns, and broke, and reblended.  The long
+portico of Caesar's baths resounded to the hollow hum of voices.
+Streaming lines of slaves in the midst of the street were delayed by the
+crowd, and abused for obstructing it.  Gossip went up like the voice of
+the sea to the cliffs and startled clouds of spray-white pigeons,
+faintly edged with pink against an azure sky;  then ceased as suddenly.
+The news was known.   Whatever Antioch knew, bored it.  Nine days'
+wonders were departed long ago into the limbo of the days of Xerxes.
+Nine hours had come to be the limit of men's interest--nine minutes the
+crucial phase of excitement, during which the balance of emotion hovered
+between rioting or laughter.
+
+Antioch grew quiet, conscious of the sunny weather and the springtime
+lassitude that is a luxury to masters but that slaves must overcome.
+The gangs went forth to clear the watercourses in advance of floods,
+whips cracking to inspire zeal.  Wagon-loads of flowers, lowing milk-
+white oxen, white goats--even a white horse, a white ass--oil and wine
+in painted carts, whose solid wooden wheels screamed on their axles like
+demons in agony-threaded the streets to the temples, lest the gods
+forget convenience and send the floods too soon.
+
+The Forum--gilt-edged marble, tinted statuary, a mosaic pavement like a
+rich-hued carpet from the looms of Babylon--began to overflow with
+leisured men of business.  Their slaves did all the worrying.  The
+money-changers' clerks sat by the bags of coin, with scales and shovel
+and the tables of exchange.  The chaffering began in corn-shops, where
+the lawless agreements for delivery of unsown harvests changed hands ten
+times in the hour, and bills on Rome, scrawled over with endorsements,
+outsped currency as well as outwitted the revenue men.  No tax-farmer's
+slave could keep track of the flow of intangible wealth when the bills
+for a million sesterces passed to and fro like cards in an Egyptian
+game.  Men richer than the fabled Croesus carried all their wealth in
+leather wallets in the form of mortgages on gangs of slaves,
+certificates of ownership of cargoes, promises to pay and contracts for
+delivery of merchandise.
+
+Nine-tenths of all the clamor was the voice of slaves, each one of them
+an expert in his master's business and often richer than the owners of
+the men he dealt with, saving his peculium--the personal savings which
+slaves were sometimes encouraged to accumulate--to buy his freedom when
+a more than usually profitable deal should put his master in a good
+mood.
+
+The hall of the basilica was almost as much a place of fashion as the
+baths of Julius Caesar, except that there were some admitted into the
+basilica whose presence, later in the day, within the precincts of the
+baths would have led to a riot.  Whoever had wealth and could afford to
+match wits with the sharpest traders in the world might enter the
+basilica and lounge amid the statuary.  Thither well dressed slaves came
+hurrying with contracts and the news of changing prices.  There, on
+marble benches, spread with colored cushions, at the rear under the
+balcony, the richer men of business sat chattering to mask their real
+thoughts--Jews, Alexandrians, Athenians--a Roman here and there,
+cupidity more frankly written on his face, his eyes a little harder and
+less subtle, more abrupt in gesture and less patient with delays.
+
+
+"That is a tale which is all very well for the slaves to believe, and
+for the priests, if they wish, to repeat.  As for me, I was born in
+Tarsus, where no man in his senses believes anything except a bill of
+sale."
+
+"But I tell you, Maternus was scourged, and then crucified at the place
+of execution nearest to where he committed his last crime. That is,
+where the crossroad leads to Daphne.  There is no doubt about that
+whatever.  He was nearly four days dying, and the sentries stood guard
+over him until he ceased to breathe, a little after sunset yesterday
+evening.  So they say, at all events.  A little before midnight, in
+Daphne, near one of those booths where the caterers prepare hot meals, a
+man strode up to where some slaves were seated around a fire.  He burned
+a piece of parchment.  All nine slaves agree that he was about Maternus'
+height and build;  that he strode like a man who had been hurt; that he
+had mud and grass stains on his knees, and covered his face with a toga.
+They also swear he said he was Maternus, and that he was gone before
+they could recover their wits.  They say his voice was sepulchral.  One
+of the slaves, who can read, declares that the words on the parchment he
+burned were "Maternus Latro," and that it was the identical parchment he
+had seen hanging from Maternus' neck on the cross.  They tortured that
+slave at once, of course, to get the truth out of him, and on the rack
+he contradicted himself at least a dozen times, so they whipped him and
+let him go, because his owner said he was a valuable cook;  but the fact
+remains that the story hasn't been disproved.
+
+"And there is absolutely no doubt whatever about this:  The caravan from
+Asia came in just a little after dawn, having traveled the last stage by
+night, as usual, in order to arrive early and get the formalities over
+with.  They came past the place of execution before sunrise.  They had
+heard the news of the execution from the north-bound caravan that passed
+them in the mountains.  They had all been afraid of Maternus because he
+had robbed so many wayfarers, so naturally they were interested to see
+his dead body.  It was gone!"
+
+"What of it?  Probably the women took it down for burial. Robbers always
+have a troupe of women.  Maternus never had to steal one, so they say.
+They flocked to him like Bacchanalians."
+
+"No matter.  Now listen to this:  between the time when they learned of
+Maternus' execution and their passing the place of execution that is to
+say at the narrowest part of the pass, where it curves and begins to
+descend on this side of the mountain--they were attacked by robbers who
+made use of Maternus' war-cry. The robbers were beaten off, although
+they wounded two men of the guard and got away with half-a-dozen horses
+and a slave-girl."
+
+"That means nothing--Pardon me a moment while I see what my man has been
+doing.  What is it, Stilchio?  Are you mad?  You have contracted to
+deliver fifty bales at yesterday's price?  You want to ruin me?  Oh.
+You are quite sure?  Very well:  A good man, that--went out and met the
+caravan--bought low--sold high, and the price is falling.  But as I was
+saying, your story is simply a string of coincidences.  All the robbers
+use Maternus' war-cry, because of the terror his name inspires;  they
+probably had not heard he had been crucified."
+
+"Well, that was what the caravan folk thought, until they passed the
+place of execution and saw no body there."
+
+"The robbers possibly themselves removed it and were seeking to avenge
+Maternus."
+
+"Much more likely somebody was bribed to let him escape!  We all know
+Maternus was scourged, for that was done in Antioch;  but they did not
+scourge him very badly, for fear he might die on the way to the place of
+execution.  There is no doubt he was crucified, but he was only tied,
+not nailed.  It would have been perfectly simple to substitute some
+other criminal that first night--somebody who looked a little like him;
+they would give the substitute poppy juice to keep him from crying out
+to passers-by."
+
+"Substitution has often been done, of course.  But it takes a lot of
+money and considerable influence to bribe the guard.  They are under the
+authority of a centurion, who would have to look out for informers.  And
+besides, you can't persuade me that a man who had been scourged, and
+crucified, if only for one day, could walk into Daphne two or three
+nights afterward and carry on a conversation.  Why should he visit
+Daphne?  Why should he choose that place, of all places in the world,
+and midnight, to destroy the identification parchment?  Having destroyed
+it, why did he then tell the slaves who he was?  It sounds like a tale
+out of Egypt to me."
+
+"Well, the priests are saying--"
+
+"Tchutt-tchutt!  Priests say anything."   "Nevertheless, the priests are
+saying that Maternus, after he was captured, managed to convey a message
+to his followers commanding them to offer sacrifices to Apollo, who
+accordingly intervened in his behalf. And they say he undoubtedly went
+to Daphne to return thanks at the temple threshold."
+
+"Hah-Hah!  Excellent!  Let us go to the baths.  You need to sweat the
+superstition out of you!  Better leave word where we are going, so that
+our factors will know where to find us in case any important business
+turns up."
+
+
+In the palace, in the office of the governor, where the lapping of water
+and irises could be heard through the opened windows, Pertinax sat
+facing the governor of Antioch across a table heaped with parchment
+rolls.  A dozen secretaries labored in the next room, but the door
+between was closed;  the only witnesses were leisurely, majestic swans,
+seen down a vista of well pruned shrubbery that flanked the narrow lawn.
+An awning crimsoned and subdued the sunlight, concealing the lines on
+the governor's face and suggesting color on his pale cheeks.
+
+He was a fat man, pouched under the eyes and growing bald--an almost
+total contrast to the lean and active, although older Pertinax.  His
+smile was cynical.  His mouth curved downward.  He had large, fat hands
+and cold, dark calculating eyes.
+
+"I would feel more satisfied," he said, "if I could have Norbanus'
+evidence."
+
+"Find him then!" Pertinax answered irritably.  "What is the matter with
+your police?  In Rome, if I propose to find a man he is brought before
+me instantly."
+
+"This is not Rome," said the governor, "as you would very soon discover
+if you occupied my office.  I sent a lictor and a dozen men to Norbanus'
+house, but he is missing and has not been seen, although it is known,
+and you admit, that he dined with you last night at Daphne.  He has no
+property worth mentioning.  His house is under lien to money-lenders.
+He is well known to have been Sextus' friend, and the moment this order
+arrived proscribing Sextus I added to it the name of Norbanus in my own
+handwriting, on the principle that treason keeps bad company.
+
+"My own well known allegiance to the emperor obliges me to tear out the
+very roots of treason at the first suggestion of its presence in our
+midst.  I have long suspected Sextus, who was a cross-grained,
+obstinate, quick-witted, proud young man--a lot too critical.  I am
+convinced now that he and Norbanus were hatching some kind of plot
+between them--possibly against the sacred person of our emperor--a
+frightful sacrilege!--the suggestion of it makes me shudder!  There is,
+of course, no doubt about Sextus;  the emperor's own proscription brands
+him as a miscreant unfit to live, and he was lucky to have died by
+accident instead of being torn apart by tongs.  It seems to me
+unquestionable that Norbanus shared his guilt and took care to escape
+before he could be seized and brought to justice.  What is in doubt,
+most noble Pertinax, is how you can excuse yourself to our sacred
+emperor for having let Sextus escape from your clutches, after you had
+seen that letter!  How can you excuse yourself for not pouncing the
+letter, to be used as evidence against rascally freedmen who forewarned
+the miscreant Sextus about the emperor's intentions?--and for not
+realizing that Norbanus was undoubtedly in league with him?  How can you
+explain your having let Norbanus get away is something I confess I am
+unable to imagine."
+
+"Conjure your imagination!" Pertinax retorted.  "I am to inquire into
+the suitability of Antioch or Daphne as the site of the Olympic games
+that the emperor proposed to preside over in person.  You can imagine, I
+suppose, how profitable that would be for Antioch--and you.  Am I to
+tell the emperor that robbers in the mountains and the laxity of local
+government make the selection of Antioch unwise?"
+
+They stared at each other silently across the table, Pertinax erect and
+definite, the governor of Antioch indefinite and stroking his chin with
+fat, white fingers.
+
+"It would be simplest," said the governor of Antioch at last, "to have
+Norbanus executed."
+
+"Some one should always be executed when the emperor signs proscription
+lists!" said Pertinax.  "Has it ever occurred to you to wonder how many
+soldiers in the legions in the distant provinces were certified as dead
+before they left Rome?"
+
+The governor of Antioch smiled meanly.  He resented the suggestions that
+there might be tricks he did not understand.
+
+"I have a prisoner," he said, "who might be Norbanus.  He has been
+tortured.  He refused to identify himself."
+
+"Does he look like him?"
+
+"That would be difficult to say.  He broke into a jeweler's and was very
+badly beaten by the slaves, who slashed his face, which is heavily
+bandaged.  He appears to be a Roman and is certainly a thief, but beyond
+that--"
+
+"Much depends on who is interested in him," Pertinax suggested. "Usually
+a man's relatives--"
+
+But the governor of Antioch's fat hand made a disparaging careless
+gesture.  "He has no friends.  He has been in the carceres (the cells in
+which prisoners were kept who had been sentenced to death.  Under Roman
+law there was practically no imprisonment for crime.  Fines, flogging,
+banishment were the substitutes for execution.) more than a month.  I
+was reserving him for execution by the lions at the next public games.
+Truth to tell, I had almost forgotten him.  I will write out a warrant
+for Norbanus' execution and it shall be attended to this morning. And by
+the way--regarding the Olympic games--"
+
+"The emperor, I think, would like to see them held in Antioch," said
+Pertinax.
+
+
+The merchants strolling to the baths stood curiously for a while to
+watch one of the rapidly increasing sect of Christians, who leaned from
+a balcony over the street and exhorted a polyglot crowd of freedmen,
+slaves and idlers.  He was bearded, brown-skinned from exposure, brown-
+robed, scrawny, vehement.
+
+"Peculiar times!" one merchant said.  "If you and I should cause a crowd
+to gather while we prated about refusal to do homage to the gods--of
+whom mind you, the emperor is one, and not the least--"
+
+"But let us listen," said the other.
+
+The man's voice was resonant.  He used no tricks of oratory such as
+Romans over-valued, and was not too careful in the choice of phrases.
+The Greek idiom he used was unadorned--the language of the market-place
+and harbor-front.  He made his points directly, earnestly, not arguing
+but like a guide to far-off countries giving information:
+
+"Slaves--freedmen--masters--all are equal before God, and on the last
+day all shall rise up from the dead--"
+
+A loiterer heckled him:
+
+"Hah!  The crucified too?--what about Maternus?"
+
+The preacher, throwing up his right hand, snatched at opportunity:
+
+"There were two thieves crucified, one on either hand, as I have told
+you.  To the one was said:  'This day shalt thou be with me in
+paradise';  but to the other nothing.  Nevertheless, all shall rise up
+from the dead on the last day--you, and your friends, and the wise and
+the fools, and the slave and the free--aye, and Maternus also--"
+
+One merchant grinned to the other:
+
+"Yet I think it was on the first night that Maternus rose up! They
+stiffen if they stay a whole night on the cross.  If he could walk to
+Daphne three nights later, he had not been crucified many hours.  Come,
+let us go to the baths before the crowd gets there.  If one is late
+those insolent attendants lose one's clothing, and there is no chance
+whatever of getting a good soft-handed slave to rub one down.  Don't you
+hate to be currycombed by a rascal with corns on his fingers?"
+
+
+
+
+V.  ROME--THE THERMAE OF TITUS
+
+
+
+There were even birds, to fill the air with music.  All the known world,
+and the far-away mysterious lands of which Alexander's followers had
+started legends multiplying centuries ago, had contributed to Rome's
+adornment;  plunder and trade goods drifted through in spite of
+distances.  The city had become the vortex of the energy, virility and
+vice of east and west--a glory of marble and gilded cornices, of domes
+and spires, of costumes, habits, faces, languages--of gorgeousness and
+squalor--license, privilege and rigid formalism--extravagance--and of
+innumerable gods.
+
+There was nobility and love of virtue, cheek by jowl with beastliness,
+nor was it always easy to discover which was which; but the birds sang
+blithely in the cages in the portico, where the long seat was on which
+philosophers discoursed to any one who cared to listen.  The baths that
+the Emperor Titus built were the supreme, last touch of all.  From
+furnaces below-ground, where the whipped slaves sweated in the dark, to
+domed roof where the doves changed hue amid the gleam of gold and
+colored glass, they typified Rome, as the city herself was of the
+essence of the world.
+
+The approach to the Thermae of Titus was blocked by litters, some heavy
+enough to be borne by eight matched slaves and large enough for company.
+Women oftener than men shared litters with friends; then the troupe of
+attendants was doubled;  slaves were in droves, flocks, hordes around
+the building, making a motley sight of it in their liveries, which were
+adaptations of the every-day costumes of almost all the countries of the
+known world.
+
+Under the entrance portico, between the double row of marble columns,
+sat a throng of fortune-tellers of both sexes, privileged because the
+aedile of that year had superstitious leanings, but as likely as not to
+be driven away, and even whipped, when the next man should succeed to
+office.  In and out among the crowd ran tipsters, touts for gambling
+dens and sellers of charms;  most of them found ready customers among
+the slaves, who had nothing to do but wait, and stare, and yawn until
+their masters came out from the baths.  They were raw, inexperienced
+slaves who had not a coin or two to spend.
+
+Within the entrance of the Thermae was a marble court, where better
+known philosophers discoursed on topics of the day, each to his own
+group of admirers.  A Christian, dressed like any other Roman, held one
+corner with a crowd around him.  There was a tremendous undercurrent of
+reaction against the prevalent cynical materialism and the vortex of
+fashion was also the cauldron of new aspirations and the battle-ground
+of wits.
+
+Beyond the inner entrance were the two disrobing rooms--women to the
+left, men to the right where slaves, whose insolence had grown into a
+cultivated art, exchanged the folded garments for a bracelet with a
+number.  Thence, stark-naked, through the bronze doors set in green-
+veined marble, bathers passed into the vast frigidarium, whose marble
+plunge was surrounded by a mosaic promenade beneath a bronze and marble
+balcony.
+
+There men and women mingled indiscriminately, watching the divers,
+conversing, matching wits, exchanging gossip, some walking briskly
+around the promenade while others lounged on the marble seats that were
+interspaced against the wall between the statues.
+
+There was not one gesture of indecency.  A man who had stared at a woman
+would have been thrown out, execrated and forever more refused
+admission.  But out in the street, where the litter-bearers and
+attendants whiled away the time, there were tales told that spread to
+the ends of the earth.
+
+
+On a bench of black marble, between two statues of the Grecian Muses,
+Pertinax sat talking with Bultius Livius, sub-prefect of the palace.
+They were both pink-skinned from plunging in the pool, and the white
+scars, won in frontier wars, showed all the more distinctly. Boltius
+Livius was a clean-shaven, sharp-looking man with a thin-lipped air of
+keenness.
+
+"This dependence on Marcia can easily be overdone," he remarked. His
+eyes moved restlessly left and right.  He lowered his voice. "Nobody
+knows how long her hold over Caesar will last.  She owns him at present
+owns him absolutely--owns Rome.  He delights in letting her revoke his
+orders;  it's a form of self-debauchery; he does things purposely to
+have her overrule him.  But that has already lasted longer than I
+thought it would."
+
+"It will last as long as she and her Christians spy for him and make
+life pleasant," said Pertinax.
+
+"Exactly.  But that is the difficulty," Livius answered, moving his eyes
+again restlessly.  There was not much risk of informers in the Thermae,
+but a man never knew who his enemies were. "Marcia represents the
+Christians, and the idiots won't let well enough alone.  By Hercules,
+they have it all their own way, thanks to Marcia.  They are allowed to
+hold their meetings.  All the statutes against them are ignored.  They
+even go unpunished if they don't salute Caesar's image!  They are
+allowed to preach against slavery.  It has got so now that if a man
+condemned to death pretends he is a Christian they're even allowed to
+rescue him out of the carceres!  That's Juno's truth:  I know of a dozen
+instances.  But it's the old story:  Put a beggar on a horse and he will
+demand your house next.  There's no satisfying them.  I am told they
+propose to abolish the gladiatorial combats!  Laugh if you like.  I have
+it from unquestionable sources.  They intend to begin by abolishing the
+execution of criminals in the arena. Shades of Nero!  They keep after
+Marcia day and night to dissuade Caesar from taking part in the
+spectacles, on the theory that he helps to make them popular."
+
+"What do they propose to substitute in popular esteem?" asked Pertinax.
+
+"I don't know.  They're mad enough for anything, and their hold over
+Marcia is beyond belief.  The next thing you'll know, they'll persuade
+her it's against religion to be Caesar's mistress!  They're quite
+capable of sawing off the branch they're sitting on.  By Hercules, I
+hope they do it!  Some of us might go down in the scramble, but--"
+
+"Does Marcia give Christian reasons to the emperor?" asked Pertinax, his
+forehead puzzled.
+
+"No, no.  No, by Hercules. No, no.  Marcia is as skillful at managing
+Commodus as he is at hurling a javelin or driving horses.  She talks
+about the dignity of Caesar and the glory of Rome--uses truth adroitly
+for her own ends--argues that if he continues to keep company with
+gladiators and jockeys, and insists on taking part in the combats, Rome
+may begin to despise him."
+
+"Rome does!" murmured Pertinax, his eyes and lips suggesting a mere
+flicker of a smile.  "But only let Commodus once wake up to the fact
+and--"
+
+Bultius Livius nodded.
+
+"He will return the compliment and show us how to despise at wholesale,
+eh?  Marcia's life and yours and mine wouldn't be worth an hour's
+purchase.  The problem is, who shall warn Marcia? She grows intolerant
+of friendly hints.  I made her a present the other day of eight matched
+German' litter-bearers--beauties--they cost a fortune--and I took the
+opportunity to have a chat with her.  She told me to go home and try to
+manage my own wife! Friendly enough--she laughed--she meant no enmity;
+but shrewd though she is, and far-seeing though she is, the wine of
+influence is going to her head.  You know what that portends. Few men,
+and fewer women, can drink deeply of that wine and--"
+
+"She comes," said Pertinax.
+
+There was a stir near the bronze door leading to the women's disrobing
+hall.  Six women in a group were answering greetings, Marcia in their
+midst, but no man in the Thermae looked at them a moment longer than was
+necessary to return the wave of the hand with which Marcia greeted every
+one before walking down the steps into the plunge.  She did not even
+wear the customary bracelet with its numbered metal disk;  not even the
+attendants at the Thermae would presume to lose the clothing of the
+mistress of the emperor.  Commodus, who at the age of twelve had flung a
+slave into the furnace because the water was too hot, would have made
+short work of any one who mislaid Marcia's apparel.
+
+She did not belie her reputation.  It was no wonder that the sculptors
+claimed that every new Venus they turned out was Marcia's portrait.  Her
+beauty, as her toes touched water, was like that of Aphrodite rising
+from the wave.  The light from the dome shone golden on her brown hair
+and her glossy skin.  She was a thing of sensuous delight, incapable of
+coarseness, utterly untouched by the suggestion of vulgarity, and yet--
+
+"It is strange she should take up with fancy religions," said Pertinax
+under his breath.
+
+She was pagan in every gesture, and not a patrician.  That was
+indefinable but evident to trained eyes.  Neither he, who knew her
+intimately, nor the newest, newly shaven son of a provincial for the
+first time exploring the wonders of Rome, could have imagined her as
+anything except a rich man's mistress.
+
+She plunged into the pool and swam like a mermaid, her companions
+following, climbed out at the farther end, where the diving-boards
+projected in tiers, one above the other, and passed through a bronze
+door into the first of the sweating rooms, evidently conscious of the
+murmur of comment that followed her, but taking no overt notice of it.
+
+"Who is to be the next to try to reason with her--you?" asked Boltius
+Livius.
+
+"No, not I.  I have shot my bolt," said Pertinax and closed his eyes, as
+if to shut out something from his memory--or possibly to banish thoughts
+he did not relish.  There came a definite, hard glint into Livius's
+eyes;  he had a name for being sharper to detect intrigue and its
+ramifications than even the sharp outline of his face would indicate.
+
+"You have heard of her latest indiscretion?" he asked, narrowly watching
+Pertinax.  "There is a robber at large, named Maternus--you have heard
+of him?  The man appears and disappears.  Some say he is the same
+Maternus who was crucified near Antioch at about the time when you were
+there;  some say he isn't.  He is reported to visit Rome in various
+disguises, and to be able to conduct himself so well that he can pass
+for a patrician.  Some say he has a large band;  some say, hardly any
+followers.  Some say it was he who robbed the emperor's own mail a month
+ago.  He is reported to be here, there, everywhere;  but there came at
+last reliable information that he lives in a cave in the woods on an
+estate that fell to the fiscus (the government department into which all
+payments were made, corresponding roughly to a modern treasury
+department) at the time when Maximus and his son Sextus were
+proscribed."
+
+Pertinax looked bored. He yawned.
+
+"I think I will go in and sweat a while," he remarked.
+
+"Not yet.  Let me finish," said Livius.  "It was reported to Caesar that
+the highwayman Maternus lives in a cave on this Aventine estate, and
+that the slaves and tenants on the place, who, of course, all passed to
+the new owner when the estate was sold, not only tolerate him but supply
+him with victuals and news.  Caesar went into one of his usual frenzies,
+cursed half the senators by name, and ordered out a cohort from a legion
+getting ready to embark at Ostia.  He ordered them to lay waste the
+estate, burn all the woods and if necessary torture the slaves and
+tenants, until they had Maternus.  Dead or alive, they were not to dare
+to come without him, and meanwhile the rest of the legion was kept
+waiting at Ostia, with all the usual nuisance of desertions and
+drunkenness and what not else."
+
+"Everybody knows about that," said Pertinax.  "As governor of Rome it
+was my duty to point out to the emperor the inconvenience of keeping
+that legion waiting under arms so near the city.  I was snubbed for my
+pains, but I did my duty."
+
+"Your duty?  There were plenty of people more concerned than you," said
+Livius, looking again as if he thought he had detected an intrigue.
+"There were the Ostian authorities, for instance, but I did not hear of
+their complaining."
+
+"Naturally not," said Pertinax, suppressing irritation.  "Every day the
+legion lingered there meant money for the enterprising city fathers.  I
+am opposed to all the petty pouching of commissions that goes on."
+
+"Doubtless.  Being governor of Rome, you naturally--"
+
+"I have heard of peculations at the palace," Pertinax interrupted.
+
+"Be that as it may, Commodus ordered out the cohort, sent it marching
+and amused himself inventing new ingenious torments for Maternus.
+Alternatively, he proposed to himself to have the cohort slaughtered in
+the arena, officers and all, if they should fail of their mission;  so
+it was safe to wager they were going to bring back some one said to be
+Maternus, whether or not they caught the right man.  Commodus was
+indulging in one of his storms of imperial righteousness.  He was going
+to stamp out lawlessness.  He was going to make it safe for any one to
+come or go along the Roman roads.  Oh, he was in a fine Augustan mood.
+It wasn't safe for any one but Marcia to come within a mile of him.
+Scowl--you know that scowl of his--it freezes the very sentries on the
+wall if he looks at their backs through the window!  I don't suppose
+there was a woman in Rome just then who would have cared to change
+places with Marcia!  He sent for her, and half the palace betted she was
+ripe for banishment to one of those island retreats where Crispina (the
+wife of Commodus who was banished to the isle of Capreae and there
+secretly put to death) lived less than a week!  But Marcia is fertile of
+surprises.  She won't surprise me if she outlives Commodus--by Hercules,
+she won't surprise me if--"
+
+He stared at Pertinax with impudently keen eyes.  Pertinax looked at the
+bronze door leading to the sweating room, shrugging himself as if the
+frigidarium had grown too cool for comfort.
+
+"Marcia actually persuaded Commodus to countermand the order!" Livius
+said, emphasizing each word.  "Almighty Jove can only guess what
+argument she used, but if Maternus had been one of her pet Christians
+she couldn't have saved him more successfully. Commodus sent a messenger
+post-haste that night to recall the cohort."
+
+"And a good thing too," Pertinax remarked.  "It isn't a legion's
+business to supply cohorts to do the work of the district police. There
+were five thousand raw men on the verge of mutiny in Ostia--"
+
+"And--wait a minute--and," said Livius, "don't go yet--this is
+interesting:  Marcia, that same night, sent a messenger of her own to
+find Maternus and to warn him."
+
+"How do you know?" Pertinax let a sign of nervousness escape him.
+
+"In the palace, those of us who value our lives and our fortunes make it
+a business to know what goes on," Livius answered with a dry laugh,
+"just as you take care to know what goes on in the city, Pertinax."
+
+The older man looked worried.
+
+"Do you mean it is common gossip in the palace?" he demanded.
+
+"You are the first man I have spoken with.  There are therefore only
+three who know, if you count the slave whom Marcia employed; four if you
+count Marcia.  I had the great good luck not long ago to catch that
+slave in flagrante delicto--never mind what he was doing;  that is
+another story altogether--and he gave me an insight into a number of
+useful secrets.  The point is, that particular slave takes care not to
+run errands nowadays without informing me.  There is not much that
+Marcia does that I don't know about."  Livius' eyes suggested gimlets
+boring holes into Pertinax's face.  Not a change of the other's
+expression escaped him.  Pertinax covered his mouth with his hand,
+pretending to yawn.  He slapped his thighs to suggest that his
+involuntary shudder was due to having sat too long.  But he did not
+deceive Livius.  "It is known to me," said Livius, "that you and Marcia
+are in each other's confidence."
+
+"That makes me doubt your other information," Pertinax retorted. "No man
+can jump to such a ridiculous conclusion and call it knowledge without
+making me doubt him on all points.  You bore me, Livius.  I have
+important business waiting;  I must make haste into the sweating room
+and get that over with."
+
+But Livius' sharp, nervous laugh arrested him.
+
+"Not yet, friend Pertinax!  Let Rome wait!  Rome's affairs will outlive
+both of us.  I suspect you intend to tell Marcia to have my name
+included in the next proscription list!  But I am not quite such a
+simpleton as that.  Sit down and listen.  I have proof that you plotted
+with the governor of Antioch to have an unknown criminal executed in
+place of a certain Norbanus, who escaped with your connivance and has
+since become a follower of the highwayman Maternus.  That involves you
+rather seriously, doesn't it!  You see, I made sure of my facts before
+approaching you.  And now--admit that I approached you tactfully!  Come,
+Pertinax, I made no threats until you let me see I was in danger. I
+admire you.  I regard you as a brave and an honorable Roman.  I propose
+that you and I shall understand each other.  You must take me into
+confidence, or I must take steps to protect myself."
+
+There was a long pause while a group of men and women came and chattered
+near by, laughing while one of the men tried to win a wager by climbing
+a marble pillar.  Pertinax frowned.  Livius did his best to look
+dependable and friendly, but his eyes were not those of a boon
+companion.
+
+"You are incapable of loyalty to any one except yourself," said Pertinax
+at last.  "What pledge do you propose to offer me?"
+
+"A white bull to Jupiter Capitolinus!  I am willing to go with you to
+the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and to swear on the altar whatever
+solemn oath you wish."
+
+Pertinax smiled cynically.
+
+"The men who slew Julius Caesar were under oath to him," he remarked.
+"Most solemn oaths they swore, then turned on one another like a pack of
+wolves!  Octavian and Anthony were under oath;  and how long did that
+last?  My first claim to renown was based on having rewon the allegiance
+of our troops in Britain, who had broken the most solemn oath a man can
+take--of loyalty to Rome.  An oath binds nobody.  It simply is an
+emphasis of what a man intends that minute.  It expresses an emotion.  I
+believe the gods smile when they hear men pledge themselves.  I
+personally, who am far less than a god and far less capable of reading
+men's minds, never trust a man unless I like him, or unless he gives me
+pledges that make doubt impossible."
+
+"Then you don't like me?" asked Livius.
+
+"I would like you better if I knew that I could trust you."
+
+"You shall, Pertinax!  Bring witnesses!  I will commit myself before
+your witnesses to do my part in--"
+
+His restless eyes glanced right and left.  Then he lowered his voice.
+
+"--in bringing about the political change you contemplate."
+
+"Let us go to the sweating room," Pertinax answered.  "Keep near me.  I
+will think this matter over.  If I see you holding speech not audible to
+me, with any one--"
+
+"I am already pledged.  You may depend on me," said Livius.  "I trust
+you more because you use caution.  Come."
+
+
+
+
+VI. THE EMPEROR COMMODUS
+
+
+
+The imperial palace was a maze of splendor such as Babylon had never
+seen.  It had its own great aqueducts to carry water for its fountains,
+for the gardens and for the imperial baths that were as magnificent, if
+not so large, as the Thermae of Titus. Palace after palace had been
+wrecked, remodeled and included in the whole, under the succeeding
+emperors, until the imperial quarters on the Palatine had grown into a
+city within a city.
+
+There were barracks for the praetorian guard that lacked not much of
+being a fortress.  Rooms and stairways for the countless slaves were
+like honeycomb cells in the dark foundations.  There were underground
+passages, some of them secret, some notorious, connecting wing with
+wing;  and there was one, for the emperor's private use, that led to the
+great arena where the games were held, so that he might come and go with
+less risk of assassination.
+
+Even temples had been taken over and included within the surrounding
+wall to make room for the ever-multiplying suites of state apartments,
+as each Caesar strove to outdo the magnificence of his predecessor.
+Oriental marble, gold-leaf, exotic trees, silk awnings, fountains, the
+majestic figures of the guards, the bronze doors and the huge height of
+the buildings, awed even the Romans who were used to them.
+
+The throne-room was a place of such magnificence that it was said that
+even Caesar himself felt small in it.  The foreign kings, ambassadors
+and Roman citizens admitted there to audience were disciplined without
+the slightest difficulty;  there was no unseemliness, no haste, no
+crowding;  horribly uncomfortable in the heavy togas that court
+etiquette prescribed, reminded of their dignity by colossal statues of
+the noblest Romans of antiquity, and ushered by magnificently uniformed
+past masters of the art of ceremony, all who entered felt that they were
+insignificant intruders into a golden mystery.  The palace prefect in
+his cloak of cloth of gold, with his ivory wand of office, seemed a high
+priest of eternity;  subprefects, standing in the marble antechamber to
+examine visitors' credentials and see that none passed in improperly
+attired, were keepers of Olympus.
+
+The gilded marble throne was on a dais approached by marble steps,
+beneath a balcony to which a stair ascended from behind a carved screen.
+Trumpets announced the approach of Caesar, who could enter unobserved
+through a door at the side of the dais. From the moment that the trumpet
+sounded, and the guards grew as rigid as the basalt statues in the
+niches of the columned walls, it was a punishable crime to speak or even
+to move until Caesar appeared and was seated.
+
+Nor was Caesar himself an anticlimax.  Even Nero, nerveless in his
+latter days, when self-will and debauchery had pouched his eyes and
+stomach, had possessed the Roman gift of standing like a god.  Vespasian
+and Titus, each in turn, was Mars personified. Aurelius had typified a
+gentler phase of Rome, a subtler dignity, but even he, whose worst
+severity was tempered by the philosophical regret that he could not kill
+crime with kindliness, had worn the imperial purple like Olympus'
+delegate.
+
+Commodus, in the minutes that he spared from his amusements to accept
+the glamor of the throne, was perfect.  Handsomest of all the Caesars,
+he could act his part with such consummate majesty that men who knew him
+intimately half-believed he was a hero after all.  Athletic, muscular
+and systematically trained, his vigor, that was purely physical, passed
+readily for spiritual quality within that golden hall, where the
+resources of the world were all put under tribute to provide a royal
+setting.  He emerged.  He smiled, as if the sun shone.  He observed the
+rolled petitions, greetings, testimonials of flattery from private
+citizens and addresses of adulation from distant cities, being heaped
+into a gilded basket as the silent throng filed by beneath him.  He
+nodded.  Now and then he scowled, his irritation growing as the minutes
+passed.  At each gesture of impatience the subprefects quietly impelled
+the crowd to quicker movement. But at the end of fifteen minutes
+Commodus grew tired of dignity and his ferocious scowl clouded his face
+like a thunderstorm.
+
+"Am I to sit here while the whole world makes itself ridiculous by
+staring at me?" he demanded, in a harsh voice.  It was loud enough to
+fill the throne-room, but none knew whether it was meant for an aside or
+not and none dared answer him.  The crowd continued flowing by, each
+raising his right hand and bowing as he reached the square of carpet
+that was placed exactly in front of Caesar's throne.
+
+Commodus rose to his feet.  All movement ceased then and there was utter
+silence.  For a moment he stood scowling at the crowd, one hand resting
+on the golden lion's head that flanked the throne.  Then he laughed.
+
+"Too many petitions!" he sneered, pointing at the overflowing basket;
+and in another moment he had vanished through the door behind the marble
+screen.  Met and escorted up the stairs by groups of cringing slaves, he
+reached a columned corridor.  Rich carpets lay on the mosaic floor;
+sunlight, from under;  the awnings of a balcony glorious with potted
+flowers, shone on the colored statuary and the Grecian paintings.
+
+"What are all these women doing?" he demanded.  There were girls, half-
+hidden behind the statues, each one trying, as he passed her, to divine
+his mood and to pose attractively.
+
+"Where is Marcia?  What will she do to me next?  Is this some new scheme
+of hers to keep me from enjoying my manhood?  Send them away!  The next
+girl I catch in the corridor shall be well whipped.  Where is Marcia?"
+
+Throwing away his toga for a slave to catch and fold he turned between
+gilded columns, through a bronze door, into the antechamber of the royal
+suite.  There a dozen gladiators greeted him as if he were the sun
+shining out of the clouds after a month of rainy weather.
+
+"This is better!" he exclaimed.  "Ho, there, Narcissus!  Ho, there,
+Horatius!  Ha!  So you recover, Albinus?  What a skull the man has!  Not
+many could take what I gave him and be on their feet again within the
+week!  You may follow me, Narcissus.  But where is Marcia?"
+
+Marcia called to him through the curtained door that led to the next
+room--
+
+"I am waiting, Commodus."
+
+"By Jupiter, when she calls me Commodus it means an argument! Are some
+more of her Christians in the carceres, I wonder?  Or has some new
+highwayman--By Juno's breasts, I tremble when she calls me Commodus!"
+
+The gladiators laughed.  He made a pass at one of them, tripped him,
+scuffled a moment and raised him struggling in the air, then flung him
+into the nearest group, who broke his fall and set him on his feet
+again.
+
+"Am I strong enough to face my Marcia?" he asked and, laughing, passed
+into the other room, where half a dozen women grouped themselves around
+the imperial mistress.
+
+"What now?" he demanded.  "Why am I called Commodus?"
+
+He stood magnificent, with folded arms, confronting her, play-acting the
+part of a guiltless man arraigned before the magistrate.
+
+"O Roman Hercules," she said, "I spoke in haste, you came so much sooner
+than expected.  What woman can remember you are anything but Caesar when
+you smile at her?  I am in love, and being loved, I am--"
+
+"Contriving some new net for me, I'll wager!  Come and watch the new men
+training with the caestus;  I will listen to your plan for ruling me and
+Rome while the sight of a good set-to stirs my genius to resist your
+blandishments!"
+
+"Caesar," she said, "speak first with me alone."  Instantly his manner
+changed.  He made a gesture of impatience.  His sudden scowl frightened
+the women standing behind Marcia, although she appeared not to notice
+it, with the same peculiar trick of seeming not to see what she did not
+wish to seem to see that she had used when she walked naked through the
+Thermae.
+
+"Send your scared women away then," he retorted.  "I trust Narcissus.
+You may speak before him."
+
+Her women vanished, hurrying into another room, the last one drawing a
+cord that closed a jingling curtain.
+
+"Do you not trust me?" asked Marcia.  "And is it seemly, Commodus, that
+I should speak to you before a gladiator?"
+
+"Speak or be silent!" he grumbled, giving her a black look, but she did
+not seem to notice it.  Her genius--the secret of her power--was to seem
+forever imperturbable and loving.
+
+"Let Narcissus bear witness then;  since Caesar bids me, I obey! Again
+and again I have warned you, Caesar.  If I were less your slave and more
+your sycophant I would have tired of warning you. But none shall say of
+Marcia that her Caesar met Nero's fate, whose women ran away and left
+him.  Not while Marcia lives shall Commodus declare he has no friends."
+
+"Who now?" he demanded angrily.  "Get me my tablet!  Come now, name me
+your conspirators and they shall die before the sun sets!"
+
+When he scowled his beauty vanished, his eyes seeming to grow closer
+like an ape's.  The mania for murder that obsessed him tautened his
+sinews.  Cheeks, neck, forearms swelled with knotted strength.
+Ungovernable passion shook him.
+
+"Name them!" he repeated, beckoning unconsciously for the tablet that
+none dared thrust into his hand.
+
+"Shall I name all Rome?" asked Marcia, stepping closer, pressing herself
+against him.  "O Hercules, my Roman Hercules--does love, that makes us
+women see, put bandages on men's eyes?  You have turned your back upon
+the better part of Rome to--"
+
+"Better part?" He shook her by the shoulders, snorting.  "Liars,
+cowards, ingrates, strutting peacocks, bladders of wind boring me and
+one another with their empty phrases, cringing lick-spittles--they make
+me sick to look at them!  They fawn on me like hungry dogs.  By Jupiter,
+I make myself ridiculous too often, pandering to a lot of courtiers!  If
+they despise me then as I despise myself, I am in a bad way!  I must
+make haste and live again!  I will get the stench of them out of my
+nostrils and the sickening sight of them out of my eyes by watching true
+men fight!  When I slay lions with a javelin, or gladiators--"
+
+"You but pander to the rabble," Marcia interrupted.  "So did Nero.  Did
+they come to his aid when the senate and his friends deserted him?"
+
+"Don't interrupt me, woman!  Senate!  Court!" he snorted.  "I can rout
+the senate with a gesture!  I will fill my court with gladiators!  I can
+change my ministers as often as I please--aye, and my mistress too," he
+added, glaring at her.  "Out with the names of these new conspirators
+who have set you trembling for my destiny!"
+
+"I know none--not yet," she said.  "I can feel, though.  I hear the
+whispers in the Thermae--"
+
+"By Jupiter, then I will close the Thermae."
+
+"When I pass through the streets I read men's faces--"
+
+"Snarled, have they?  My praetorian guard shall show them what it is to
+be bitten!  Mobs are no new things in Rome.  The old way is the proper
+way to deal with mobs!  Blood, corn and circuses, but principally blood!
+By the Dioscuri, I grow weary of your warnings, Marcia!"
+
+He thrust her away from him and went growling like a bear into his own
+apartment, where his voice could be heard cursing the attendants whose
+dangerous duty it was to divine in an instant what clothes he would wear
+and to help him into them.  He came out naked through the door, saw
+Marcia talking to Narcissus, laughed and disappeared again.  Marcia
+raised her voice:
+
+"Telamonion!  Oh, Telamonion!"
+
+A curly-headed Greek boy hardly eight years old came running from the
+outer corridor--all laughter--one of those spoiled favorites of fortune
+whom it was the fashion to keep as pets.  Their usefulness consisted
+mainly in retention of their innocence.
+
+"Telamonion, go in and play with him.  Go in and make him laugh. He is
+bad tempered."
+
+Confident of everybody's good-will, the child vanished through the
+curtains where Commodus roared him a greeting.  Marcia continued talking
+to Narcissus in a low voice.
+
+"When did you see Sextus last?" she asked.
+
+"But yesterday."
+
+"And what has he done, do you say?  Tell me that again."
+
+"He has found out the chiefs of the party of Lucius Septimius Severus.
+He has also discovered the leaders of Pescennius Niger's party.  He
+says, too, there is a smaller group that looks toward Clodius Albinus,
+who commands the troops in Britain."
+
+"Did he tell you names?"
+
+"No.  He said he knew I would tell you, and you might tell Commodus, who
+would write all the names on his proscription list. Sextus, I tell you,
+reckons his own life nothing, but he is extremely careful for his
+friends."
+
+"It would be easy to set a trap and catch him.  He is insolent. He has
+had too much rein," said Marcia.  "But what would be the use?" Narcissus
+answered.  "There would be Norbanus, too, to reckon with.  Each plays
+into the other's hands.  Each knows the other's secrets.  Kill one, and
+there remains the other--doubly dangerous because alarmed.  They take
+turns to visit Rome, the other remaining in hiding with their following
+of freedmen and educated slaves.  They only commit just enough robbery
+to gain themselves an enviable reputation on the countryside.  They
+visit their friends in Rome in various disguises, and they travel all
+over Italy to plot with the adherents of this faction or the other.
+Sextus favors Pertinax--says he would make a respectable emperor--
+another Marcus Aurelius.  But Pertinax knows next to nothing of Sextus'
+doings, although he protects Sextus as far as he can and sees him now
+and then.  Sextus' plan is to keep all three rival factions by the ears,
+so that if anything should happen--" he nodded toward the curtain, from
+behind which came the sounds of childish laughter and the crashing voice
+of Commodus encouraging in some piece of mischief--"they would be all
+at odds and Pertinax could seize the throne."
+
+"I wonder whether I was mad that I protected Sextus!" exclaimed Marcia.
+"He has served us well.  If I had let them catch and crucify him as
+Maternus, we would have had no one to keep us informed of all these
+cross-conspiracies.  But are you sure he favors Pertinax?"
+
+"Quite sure.  He even risked an interview with Flavia Titiana, to
+implore her influence with her husband.  Sextus would be all for
+striking now, this instant;  he has assured himself that the world is
+tired of Commodus, and that no faction is strong enough to stand in the
+way of Pertinax;  but he knows how difficult it will be to persuade
+Pertinax to assert himself.  Pertinax will not hear of murdering Caesar;
+he says:  'Let us see what happens--if the Fates intend me to be Caesar,
+let the Fates show how!'"
+
+"Aye, that is Pertinax!" said Marcia.  "Why is it that the honest men
+are all such delayers!  As for me, I will save my Commodus if he will
+let me.  If not, the praetorian guard shall put Pertinax on the throne
+before any other faction has a chance to move. Otherwise we all die--all
+of us!  Severus--Pescennius Niger--Clodius Albinus--any of the others
+would include us in a general proscription.  Pertinax is friendly.  He
+protects his friends. He is the safest man in all ways.  Let Pertinax be
+acclaimed by all the praetorian guard and the senate would accept him
+eagerly enough.  They would feel sure of his mildness.  Pertinax would
+do no wholesale murdering to wipe out opposition;  he would try to
+pacify opponents by the institution of reforms and decent government."
+
+"You must beware you are not forestalled," Narcissus warned her. "Sextus
+tells me there is more than one man ready to slay Commodus at the first
+chance.  Severus, Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus keep themselves
+informed as to what is going on; their messengers are in constant
+movement.  If Commodus should lift a hand against either of those three,
+that would be the signal for civil war.  All three would march on Rome."
+
+"Caesar is much more likely to learn of the plotting through his own
+informers, and to try to terrify the generals by killing their
+supporters here in Rome," said Marcia.  "What does Sextus intend?  To
+kill Caesar himself?"
+
+Narcissus nodded.
+
+"Well, when Sextus thinks that time has come, you kill him!  Let that be
+your task.  We must save the life of Commodus as long as possible.  When
+nothing further can be done, we must involve Pertinax so that he won't
+dare to back out.  It was he, you know, who persuaded me to save
+Maternus the highwayman's life;  it was he who told me Maternus is
+really Sextus, son of Maximus.  His knowledge of that secret gives me a
+certain hold on Pertinax! Caesar would have his head off at a word from
+me.  But the best way with Pertinax is to stroke the honest side of him
+--the charcoal-burner side of him--the peasant side, if that can be done
+without making him too diffident.  He is perfectly capable of offering
+the throne to some one else at the last minute!"
+
+A step sounded on the other side of the curtain.  "Caesar!" Narcissus
+whispered.  As excuse for being seen in conversation with her he began
+to show her a charm against all kinds of treachery that he had bought
+from an Egyptian.  She snatched it from him.
+
+"Caesar!" she exclaimed, bounding toward Commodus and standing in his
+way.  Not even she dared lay a hand on him when he was in that volcanic
+mood.  "As you love me, will you wear this?"
+
+"For love of you, what have I not done?" he retorted, smiling at her.
+"What now?"
+
+She advanced another half-step, but no nearer.  There was laughter on
+his lips, but in his eye cold cruelty.
+
+"My Caesar, wear it!  It protects against conspiracy."
+
+He showed her a new sword that he had girded on along with the short
+tunic of a gladiator.
+
+"Against the bellyache, use Galen's pills;  but this is the right
+medicine against conspiracy!" he answered.  Then he took the little
+golden charm into his left hand, tossing it on his palm and looked at
+her, still smiling.
+
+"Where did you get this bauble?"
+
+"Not I.  One of those magicians who frequent that Forum sold it to
+Narcissus."
+
+"Bah!"  He flung it through the window.  "Who is the magician? Name him!
+I will have him thrown into the carceres.  We'll see whether the charms
+he sells so cheap are any good!  Or is he a Christian?" he asked,
+sneering.
+
+"The Christians, you know, don't approve of charms," Marcia answered.
+
+"By Jupiter, there's not much that they do approve of!" he retorted.  "I
+begin to weary of your Christians.  I begin to think Nero was right, and
+my father, too!  There was a wisdom in treating Christians as vermin!
+It might not be a bad thing, Marcia, to warn your Christians to procure
+themselves a charm or two against my weariness of their perpetual
+efforts to govern me! The Christians, I suppose, have been telling you
+to keep me out of the arena?  Hence this living statuary in the
+corridor, and all this talk about the dignity of Rome!  Tscharr-rrh!
+There's more dignity about one gladiator's death than in all Rome
+outside the arena!  Woman, you forget you are only a woman.  I remember
+that!  I am a god!  I have the blood of Caesar in my veins.  And like
+the unseen gods, I take my pleasure watching men and women die!  I loose
+my javelins like thunderbolts--like Jupiter himself!  Like Hercules--"
+
+He paused.  He noticed Marcia was laughing.  Only she, in all the Roman
+empire, dared to mock him when he boasted.  Not even she knew why he let
+her do it.  He began to smile again, the frightful frown that rode over
+his eyes dispersing, leaving his forehead as smooth as marble.
+
+"If I should marry you and make you empress," he said, "how long do you
+think I should last after that?  You are clever enough to rule the fools
+who squawk and jabber in the senate and the Forum. You are beautiful
+enough to start another siege of Troy!  But remember:  You are Caesar's
+concubine, not empress!  Just remember that, will you!  When I find a
+woman lovelier than you, and wiser, I will give you and your Christians
+a taste of Nero's policy.  Now--do you love me?"
+
+"If I did not, could I stand before you and receive these insults?" she
+retorted, trusting to the inspiration of the moment;  for she had no
+method with him.
+
+"I would willingly die," she said, "if you would give the love you have
+bestowed on me to Rome instead, and use your godlike energy in ruling
+wisely, rather than in killing men and winning chariot races.  One
+Marcia does not matter much.  One Commodus can--"
+
+"Can love his Marcia!" he interrupted, with a high-pitched laugh. He
+seized her, nearly crushing out her breath.  "A Caius and a Caia we have
+been!  By Jupiter, if not for you and Paulus I would have left Rome long
+ago to march in Alexander's wake!  I would have carved me a new empire
+that did not stink so of politicians!"
+
+He strode into the anteroom where all the gladiators waited and
+Narcissus had to follow him--well named enough, for he was lithe and
+muscular and beautiful, but, nonetheless, though taller, not to be
+compared with Commodus--even as the women, chosen for their good looks
+and intelligence, who hastened to reappear the moment the emperor's back
+was turned, were nothing like so beautiful as Marcia.
+
+In all the known world there were no two finer specimens of human
+shapeliness than the tyrant who ruled and the woman whose wits and
+daring had so long preserved him from his enemies.
+
+"Come to the arena," he called back to her.  "Come and see how Hercules
+throws javelins from a chariot at full pelt!"
+
+But Marcia did not answer, and he forgot her almost before he reached
+the entrance of the private tunnel through which he passed to the arena.
+She had more accurately aimed and nicely balanced work to do than even
+Commodus could do with javelins against a living target.
+
+
+
+
+VII.  MARCIA
+
+
+
+In everything but title and security of tenure Marcia was empress of the
+world, and she had what empresses most often lack--the common touch.
+She had been born in slavery.  She had ascended step by step to fortune,
+by her own wits, learning by experience. Each layer of society was known
+to her--its virtues, prejudices, limitations and peculiar tricks of
+thought.  Being almost incredibly beautiful, she had learned very early
+in life that the desired (not always the desirable) is powerful to sway
+men;  the possessed begins to lose its sway;  the habit of possession
+easily succumbs to boredom, and then power ceases.  Even Commodus,
+accordingly, had never owned her in the sense that men own slaves;  she
+had reserved to herself self-mastery, which called for cunning, courage
+and a certain ruthlessness, albeit tempered by a reckless generosity.
+
+She saw life skeptically, undeceived by the fawning flattery that Rome
+served up to her, enjoying it as a cat likes being stroked. They said of
+her that she slept with one eye open.
+
+Livius had complained in the Thermae to Pertinax that the wine of
+influence was going to Marcia's head, but he merely expressed the
+opinion of one man, who would have liked to feel himself superior to her
+and to use her for his own ends.  She was not deceived by Livius, or by
+anybody else.  She knew that Livius was keeping watch on her, and how he
+did it, having shrewdly guessed that a present of eight matched litter-
+bearers was too extravagant not to mask ulterior designs.  She watched
+him much more artfully than he watched her.  Her secret knowledge that
+he knew her secret was more dangerous to him than anything that he had
+found out could be dangerous to her.
+
+The eight matched litter-bearers waited with the gilded litter near a
+flight of marble steps that descended from the door of Marcia's
+apartments in the palace to a sunlit garden with a fountain in the
+midst.  There was a crowd of servants and four Syrian eunuchs, sleek
+offensive menials in yellow robes;  two lictors besides, with fasces and
+the Roman civic uniform--a scandalous abuse of ancient ceremony--ready
+to conduct a progress through the city.  But they all yawned.  Marcia
+and her usual companion did not come;  there was delay--and gossip,
+naturally.
+
+A yawning eunuch rearranged the bowknot of his girdle.
+
+"What does she want with Livius?  He usually gets sent for when somebody
+needs punishing.  Who do you suppose has fallen foul of her?"
+
+"Himself!  He sent her messenger back with word he was engaged on palace
+business.  I heard her tell the slave to go again and not return without
+him!  Bacchus!  But it wouldn't worry me if Livius should lose his head!
+For an aristocrat he has more than his share of undignified curiosity--
+forever poking his sharp nose into other people's business.  Marcia may
+have found him out. Let's hope!"
+
+At the foot of the marble stairway, in the hall below Marcia's
+apartment, Livius stood remonstrating, growing nervous.  Marcia, dressed
+in the dignified robes of a Roman matron, that concealed even her ankles
+and suggested the demure, self-conscious rectitude of olden times, kept
+touching his breast with her ivory fan, he flinching from the touch,
+subduing irritation.
+
+"If the question is, what I want with you, Livius, the answer is, that I
+invite you.  Order your litter brought."
+
+"But Marcia, I am subprefect.  I am responsible to--"
+
+"Did you hear?"
+
+"But if you will tell where we are going, I might feel justified in
+neglecting the palace business.  I assure you I have important work to
+do."
+
+"There are plenty who can attend to it," said Marcia.  "The most
+important thing in your life, Livius, is my good-will.  You are delaying
+me."
+
+Livius glared at Caia Poppeia, the lady-in-waiting, who was smiling,
+standing a little behind Marcia.  He hoped she would take the hint and
+withdraw out of earshot, but she had had instructions, and came half a
+step closer.
+
+"Will you let me go back to my office and--"
+
+"No!" answered Marcia.
+
+He yielded with a nervous gesture, that implored her not to make an
+indiscretion.  A subprefect, in the nature of his calling, had too many
+enemies to relish repetition in the palace precincts of a threat from
+Marcia, however baseless it might be.  And besides, it might be
+something serious that almost had escaped her lips. Untrue or true, it
+would be known all over the palace in an hour; within the day all Rome
+would know of it.  There were two slaves by the front door, two more on
+the last step of the stairs.
+
+"I will come, of course," he said.  "I am delighted.  I am honored.  I
+am fortunate!"
+
+She nodded.  She sent one of her own slaves to order his private litter
+brought, while Livius attempted to look comfortable, cudgeling his
+brains to know what mischief she had found out.  It was nothing unusual
+that his litter should follow hers through the streets of Rome;  in
+fact, it was an honor coveted by all officials of the palace, that fell
+to his share rather frequently because of his distinguished air of a
+latter-day man of the world and his intimate knowledge of everybody's
+business and ancestry. He was often ordered to go with her at a moment's
+notice.  But this was the first time she had refused to say where they
+were going, or why, and there was a hint of malice in her smile that
+made his blood run cold.  He was a connoisseur of malice.
+
+Marcia leaned on his arm as she went down the steps to her litter.  She
+permitted him to help her in.  But then, while her companion was
+following through the silken curtains, she leaned out at the farther
+side and whispered to the nearest eunuch. Livius, climbing into his own
+gilt vehicle and lifted shoulder-high by eight Numidians, became aware
+that Marcia's eunuchs had been told to keep an eye on him;  two yellow-
+robed, insufferably impudent inquisitors strode in among his own
+attendants.
+
+An escort of twenty praetorian guards and a decurion was waiting at the
+gate to take its place between the lictors and Marcia's litter, but that
+did not in any way increase Livius' sense of security.  The praetorian
+guard regarded Marcia as the source of its illegal privileges.  It
+looked to her far more than to the emperor for favors, buying them with
+lawless loyalty to her.  She ruined discipline by her support of every
+plea for increased perquisites.  No outraged citizen had any hope of
+redress so long as Marcia's ear could be reached (although Commodus got
+the blame for it).  It was the key to Marcia's system of insurance
+against unforeseen contingencies.  The only regularly drilled and armed
+troops in the city were as loyal to her, secretly and openly, as Livius
+himself was to the principle of cynical self-help.
+
+He began to feel thoroughly frightened, as he told himself that the
+escort and their decurion would swear to any statement Marcia might
+make.  If she had learned that he was in the habit of receiving secret
+information from her slave, there were a thousand ways she might take to
+avenge herself;  a very simple way would be to charge him with improper
+overtures and have him killed by the praetorians--a way that might
+particularly interest her, since it would presumably increase her
+reputation for constancy to Commodus.
+
+The eunuchs watched him.  The lictors and praetorians cleared the way,
+so there were no convenient halts that could enable him to slip
+unnoticed through the crowd.  His own attendants seemed to have divined
+that there was something ominous about the journey, and he was not the
+kind of man whose servants are devotedly attached to him.  He knew it.
+He noticed sullenness already in the answers his servant gave him
+through the litter curtains, when he asked whether the man knew their
+destination.
+
+"None knows.  All I know is, we must follow Marcia."
+
+The slave's voice was almost patronizing.  Livius made up his mind, if
+he should live the day out, to sell the rascal to some farmer who would
+teach him with a whip what service meant.  But he said nothing.  He
+preferred to spring surprises, only hoping he himself might not be
+overwhelmed in one.
+
+By the time they reached Cornificia's house he was in such a state of
+nervousness, and so blanched, that he had to summon his servant into the
+litter to rub cosmetic on his cheeks.  He took one of Galen's famous
+strychnine pills before he could prevent his limbs from trembling.  Even
+so, when he rolled out of the litter and advanced with his courtliest
+bow to escort Marcia into the house, she recognized his fear and mocked
+him:
+
+"You are bilious?  Or has some handsomer Adonis won your Venus from you?
+Is it jealousy?"
+
+He pretended that the litter-bearers needed whipping for having shaken
+him.  It made him more than ever ill at ease that she should mock him
+before all the slaves who grouped themselves in Cornificia's forecourt.
+Hers was one of those houses set back from the street, combining an air
+of seclusion with such elegance as could not possibly escape the notice
+of the passer-by.  The forecourt was adorned with statuary and the gate
+left wide, affording a glimpse of sunlit greenery and marble that
+entirely changed the aspect of the narrow street.  There were never less
+than twenty tradesmen at the gate, imploring opportunity to show their
+wares, which were in baskets and boxes, with slaves squatting beside
+them.  All Rome would know within the hour that Marcia had called on
+Cornificia, and that Livius, the subprefect, had been mocked by Marcia
+in public.
+
+A small crowd gathered to watch the picturesque ceremony of reception--
+Cornificia's house steward marshaling his staff, the brightly colored
+costumes blending in the sunlight with the hues of flowers and the rich,
+soft sheen of marble in the shadow of tall cypresses.  The praetorians
+had to form a cordon in front of the gate, and the street became choked
+by the impeded traffic. Rome loved pageantry;  it filled its eyes before
+its belly, which was nine-tenths of the secret of the Caesar's power.
+
+Within the house, however, there was almost a stoical calm--a sensation
+of cloistered chastity produced by the restraint of ornament and the
+subdued light on gloriously painted frescoes representing evening
+benediction at a temple altar, a gathering of the Muses, sacrifice
+before a shrine of Aesculapius and Jason's voyage to Colchis for the
+Golden Fleece.  The inner court, where Cornificia received her guests,
+was like a sanctuary dedicated to the decencies, its one extravagance
+the almost ostentatious restfulness, accentuated by the cooing of white
+pigeons and the drip and splash of water in the fountain in the midst.
+
+The dignity of drama was the essence of all Roman ceremony.  The
+formalities of greeting were observed as elegantly, and with far more
+evident sincerity, in Cornificia's house than in Caesar's palace.
+Cornificia, dressed in white and wearing very little jewelry, received
+her guests more like an old-time patrician matron than a notorious
+modern concubine.  Her notoriety, in fact, was due to Flavia Titiana,
+rather than to any indiscretions of her own.  To justify her
+infidelities, which were a byword, Pertinax' lawful wife went to
+ingenious lengths to blacken Cornificia's reputation, regaling all
+society with her invented tales about the lewd attractions Cornificia
+staged to keep Pertinax held in her toils.
+
+That Cornificia did exercise a sway over the governor of Rome was
+undeniable.  He worshiped her and made no secret of it.  But she held
+him by a method diametrically contrary to that which rumor, stirred by
+Flavia Titiana, indicated;  Cornificia's house was a place where he
+could lay aside the feverish activities of public life and revel in the
+intellectual and philosophical amusements that he genuinely loved.
+
+But Livius loathed her.  Among other things, he suspected her of being
+in league with Marcia to protect the Christians.  To him she represented
+the idealism that his cynicism bitterly rejected. The mere fact of her
+unshakable fidelity to Pertinax was an offense in his eyes;  she
+presented what he considered an impudent pose of morality, more impudent
+because it was sustained.  He might have liked her well enough if she
+had been a hypocrite, complaisant to himself.
+
+She understood him perfectly--better, in fact, than she understood
+Marcia, whose visits usually led to intricate entanglements for
+Pertinax.  When she had sent the slaves away and they four lay at ease
+on couches in the shade of three exotic potted palms, she turned her
+back toward Livius, suspecting he would bring his motives to the surface
+if she gave him time; whereas Marcia would hide hers and employ a dozen
+artifices to make them undiscoverable.
+
+
+"You have not brought Livius because you think he loves me!" she said,
+laughing.  "Nor have you come, my Marcia, for nothing, since you might
+have sent for me and saved yourself trouble.  I anticipate intrigue!
+What plot have you discovered now?  Is Pertinax its victim?  You can
+always interest me if you talk of Pertinax."
+
+"We will talk of Livius," said Marcia.
+
+Leaning on his elbows, Livius glared at Caia Poppeia, Marcia's
+companion.  He coughed, to draw attention to her, but Marcia refused to
+take the hint.  "Livius has information for us," she remarked.
+
+Livius rose from the couch and came and stood before her, knitting his
+fingers together behind his back, compelling himself to smile.  His
+pallor made the hastily applied cosmetics look ridiculous.
+
+"Marcia," he said, "you make it obvious that you suspect me of some
+indiscretion."
+
+"Never!" she retorted, mocking.  "You indiscreet?  Who would believe it?
+Give us an example of discretion;  you are Paris in the presence of
+three goddesses.  Select your destiny!"
+
+He smiled, attempted to regain his normal air of tolerant importance--
+glanced about him--saw the sunlight making iridescent pools of fire
+within a crystal ball set on the fountain's edge--took up the ball and
+brought it to her, holding it in both hands.
+
+"What choice is there than that which Paris made?" he asked, kneeling on
+one knee, laughing.  "Venus rules men's hearts.  She must prevail.  So
+into your most lovely hands I give my destiny."
+
+"You mean, you leave it there!" said Marcia.  "Could you ever afford to
+ignore me and intrigue behind my back?"
+
+"I am the least intriguing person of your acquaintance, Marcia," he
+answered, rising because the hard mosaic pavement hurt his knee, and the
+position made him feel undignified.  But more than dignity he loved
+discretion;  he wished there were eyes in the back of his head, to see
+whether slaves were watching from the curtained windows opening on the
+inner court.  "It is my policy," he went on, "to know much and say
+little;  to observe much, and do nothing!  I am much too lazy for
+intrigue, which is hard work, judging by what I have seen of those who
+indulge in it."
+
+"Is that why you sacrificed a white bull recently?" asked Marcia.
+
+Livius glanced at Cornificia, but her patrician face gave no hint.  Caia
+Poppeia's was less under control, for she was younger and had nothing to
+conceal;  she was inquisitively enjoying the entertainment and evidently
+did not know what was coming.
+
+"I sacrificed a white bull to Jupiter Capitolinus, as is customary, to
+confirm a sacred oath," he answered.
+
+"Very well, suppose you break the oath!" said Marcia.
+
+He managed to look scandalized--then chuckled foolishly, remembering
+what Pertinax had said about the value of an oath; but his own dignity
+obliged him to protest.
+
+"I am not one of your Christians," he answered, stiffening himself.  "I
+am old-fashioned enough to hold that an oath made at the altar of our
+Roman Jupiter is sacred and inviolable."
+
+"When you took your oath of office you swore to be in all things true to
+Caesar," Marcia retorted.  "Do you prefer to tell Caesar how true you
+have been to that oath?  Which oath holds the first one or the second?"
+
+"I could ask to be released from the second one," said Livius. "If you
+will give me time--"
+
+Marcia's laugh interrupted him.  It was soft, melodious, like wavelets
+on a calm sea, hinting unseen reefs.
+
+"Time," she said, "Is all that death needs!  Death does not wait on
+oaths;  it comes to us.  I wish to know just how far I can trust you,
+Livius."
+
+Nine Roman nobles out of ten in Livius' position would have recognized
+at once the deadliness of the alternatives she offered and, preserving
+something of the shreds of pride, would have accepted suicide as
+preferable.  Livius had no such stamina.  He seized the other horn of
+the dilemma.
+
+"I perceive Pertinax has betrayed me," he sneered, looking sharply at
+Cornificia;  but she was watching Marcia and did not seem conscious of
+his glance.  "If Pertinax has broken his oath, mine no longer binds me.
+This is the fact then:  I discovered how he helped Sextus, son of
+Maximus, to avoid execution by a ruse, making believe to be killed.
+Pertinax was also privy to the execution of an unknown thief in place of
+Norbanus, a friend of Sextus, also implicated in conspiracy.  Pertinax
+has been secretly negotiating with Sextus ever since.  Sextus now calls
+himself Maternus and is notorious as a highwayman."
+
+"What else do you know about Maternus?" Marcia inquired.  There was a
+trace at last of sharpness in her voice.  A hint conveyed itself that
+she could summon the praetorians if he did not answer swiftly.
+
+"He plots against Caesar."
+
+"You know too little or too much!" said Marcia.  "What else?"
+
+He closed his lips tight.  "I know nothing else."
+
+"Have you had any dealings with Sextus?"
+
+"Never."
+
+He was shifting now from one foot to the other, hardly noticeably, but
+enough to make Marcia smile.  "Shall we hear what Sextus has to say to
+that?" asked Cornificia, so confidently that there was no doubt Marcia
+had given her the signal.
+
+Marcia moved her melting, lazy, laughing eyes and Cornificia clapped her
+hands.  A slave came.
+
+"Bring the astrologer."
+
+Sextus must have been listening, he appeared so instantly.  He stood
+with folded arms confronting them, his weathered face in sunlight.
+Pigment was not needed to produce the healthy bronze hue of his skin;
+his curly hair, bound by a fillet, was unruly from the outdoor life he
+had been leading; the strong sinews of his arms and legs belied the ease
+of his pretended calling and the starry cloak he wore was laughable in
+its failure to disguise the man of action.  He saluted the three women
+with a gesture of the raised right hand that no man unaccustomed to the
+use of arms could imitate, then turning slightly toward Livius,
+acknowledged his nod with a humorous grin.
+
+"So we meet again, Bultius Livius."
+
+"Again?" asked Marcia.
+
+"Why yes, I met him in the house of Pertinax.  It is three days since we
+spoke together.  Three, or is it four, Livius?  I have been busy.  I
+forget."
+
+"Can Livius have lied?" asked Marcia.  She seemed to be enjoying the
+entertainment.
+
+Livius threw caution to the winds.
+
+"Is this a tribunal?" he demanded.  "If so, of what am I accused?"  He
+tried to speak indignantly, but something caught in his throat.  The
+cough became a sob and in a moment he was half-hysterical.  "By
+Hercules, what judges!  What a witness!  Is he a two-headed witness who
+shall swear my life away?  I understand you, Marcia!"
+
+(At least two witnesses were necessary under Roman law.)
+
+"You?" she laughed.  "You understand me?"
+
+He recovered something of his self-possession, a wave of virility
+returning.  High living and the feverish excitement of the palace regime
+had ruined his nerves but there were traces still of his original
+astuteness.  He resumed his air of dignity.
+
+"Pardon me," he said.  "I have been overworked of late.  I must see
+Galen about this jumpiness.  When I said I understand you I meant, I
+realize that you are joking.  Naturally you would not receive a
+highwayman in Cornificia's house, and at the same time accuse me of
+treason!  Pray excuse my outburst--set it to the score of ill-health.  I
+will see Galen."
+
+"You shall see him now!" laughed Marcia, and Cornificia clapped her
+hands.
+
+Less suddenly than Sextus had appeared, because his age was beginning to
+tell on him, Galen entered the court through a door behind the palm-
+trees and stood smiling, making his old-world, slow salute to Marcia.
+His bright eyes moved alertly amid wrinkles.  He looked something like
+the statues of the elder Cato, only with a kindlier humor and less
+obstinacy at the corners of the mouth.  Two slaves brought out a couch
+for him and vanished when he had taken his ease on it after fussing a
+little because the sun was in his eyes.
+
+"My trade is to oppose death diplomatically," he remarked.  "I am a poor
+diplomatist.  I only gain a little here and there.  Death wins
+inevitably.  Nevertheless, they only summon me for consultation when
+they hope to gain a year or two for somebody. Marcia, unless you let
+Bultius Livius use that couch he will swoon.  I warn you.  The man's
+heart is weak.  He has more brain than heart," he added.  "How is our
+astrologer?"
+
+He greeted Sextus with a wrinkled grin and beckoned him to share his
+couch.  Sextus sat down and began chafing the old doctor's legs.  Marcia
+took her time about letting Livius be seated.
+
+"You heard Galen?" she asked.  "We are here to cheat death
+diplomatically."
+
+"Whose death?" Livius demanded.
+
+"Rome's!" said Marcia, her eyes intently on his face.  "If Rome should
+split in three parts it would fall asunder.  None but Commodus can save
+us from a civil war.  We are here to learn what Bultius Livius can do to
+preserve the life of Commodus."
+
+Livius' face, grotesque already with its hastily smeared carmine,
+assumed new bewilderment.
+
+"I have seen men tortured who were less ready to betray themselves,"
+said Galen.  "Give him wine--strong wine, that is my advice."
+
+But Marcia preferred her victim thoroughly subjected.
+
+"Fill your eyes with sunlight, Livius.  Breathe deep!  You look and
+breathe your last, unless you satisfy me!  This astrologer, who is not
+Sextus--mark that!  I have said he is not Sextus. Galen certified to
+Sextus' death and there were twenty other witnesses.  Nor is he Maternus
+the highwayman.  Maternus was crucified.  That other Maternus, who is
+rumored to live in the Aventine Hills, is an imaginary person--a mere
+name used by runaways who take to robbery.  This astrologer, I say,
+reports that you know all the secrets of the factions that are
+separately plotting to destroy our Commodus."
+
+Livius did not answer, although she paused to give him time.
+
+"You said you understood me, Livius.  But it is I who understand you--
+utterly!  To you any price is satisfactory if your own skin and
+perquisites are safe.  You are as crafty a spy as any rat in the palace
+cellars.  You have kept yourself informed in order to get the pickings
+when you see at last which side to take. Careful, very clever of you,
+Livius!  But have you ever seen an eagle rob a fish-hawk of its catch?"
+
+"Why waste time?" Cornificia asked impatiently.  "He forced himself on
+Pertinax, who should have had him murdered, only Pertinax is too
+indifferent to his own--"
+
+"Too philosophical!" corrected Galen.
+
+Then Caia Poppeia spoke up, in a young, hard voice that had none of
+Marcia's honeyed charm.  No doubt of her was possible;  she could be
+cruel for the sake of cruelty and loyal for the sake of pride.  Her
+beauty was a mere means to an end--the end intrigue, for the
+impassionate excitement of it.  She was straight-lipped, with a smile
+that flickered, and a hard light in her blue eyes.
+
+"It was I who learned you spy on Marcia.  I know, too, that you keep a
+spy in Britain,--one in Gaul, another in Severus' camp.  I read the last
+nine letters they sent you.  I showed them to Marcia."
+
+"I kept one," Marcia added.  "It came yesterday.  It compromises you
+beyond--"
+
+"I yield!" said Livius, his knees beginning to look weak.
+
+"To whom?  To me?" asked Sextus, standing up abruptly and confronting
+him with folded arms.  "Who stole the list I sent to Pertinax, of names
+of the important men who are intriguing for Severus, and for Pescennius
+Niger, and for Clodius Albinus?"
+
+"Who knows?" Livius shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"None knew of that list but you!" said Sextus.  "You heard me speak of
+it to Pertinax.  You heard me promise I would send it to him.  None but
+you and he and I knew who the messenger would be. Where is the
+messenger?"
+
+"In the sewers probably!" said Marcia.  "The list is more important."
+
+"If it isn't in the sewers, too," said Livius, snatching at a straw.
+"By Hercules, I know nothing of a list."
+
+"Then you shall drown with Sextus' slave in the Cloaca Maxima, the great
+sewer of Rome," said Marcia.  "Not that I need the list.  I know what
+names are written on it.  But if it should have fallen into Caesar's
+hands--"
+
+She shuddered, acting horror perfectly, and Livius, like a drowning man
+who thinks he sees the shore, struck out and sank!
+
+"You threaten me, but I am no such fool as you imagine!  I know all
+about you!  I perceive you have crossed your Rubicon.  Well--"
+
+"Summon the decurion and two men!" Marcia interrupted, glancing at
+Cornificia.  But she made a gesture with her hand that Cornificia
+interpreted to mean "do nothing of the kind!"
+
+Livius did not see the gesture.  Rage, shame, terror overwhelmed him and
+he blurted out the information Marcia was seeking--hurled it at her in
+the form of silly, useless threats:
+
+"You wanton!  You can kill me but my journal is in safe hands! Harm me--
+cause me to be missing from the palace for a few hours, and they may
+light your funeral fires!  My journal, with the names of the
+conspirators, and all the details of your daily intriguing, goes
+straight into Caesar's hands!"
+
+The climax he expected failed.  There was no excitement.  Nobody seemed
+astonished.  Marcia settled herself more comfortably on the couch and
+Galen began whispering to Sextus.  The two other women looked amused.
+Reaction sweeping over him, his senses reeled and Livius stepped
+backward, staggering to the fountain, where he sat down.
+
+"Bona dea!  But the man took time to tell his secret!" Marcia exclaimed.
+"Popeia, you had better take my litter to the palace and bring that minx
+Cornelia.  I suspected it was she but wasn't sure of it.  Don't give her
+an inkling of what you know.  Go with her to her apartment and watch her
+dress;  then make an excuse to keep her waiting in your room while you
+go back and search hers. Have help if you need it;  take two of my
+eunuchs, but watch that they don't read the journal.  Look under her
+mattress.  Look everywhere.  If you can't find the journal, bring
+Cornelia without it.  I will soon make her tell us where it is."
+
+
+
+
+VIII.  NARCISSUS
+
+
+
+"A gladiator's life is not so bad if he behaves himself, and while it
+lasts," Narcissus said.
+
+He was sitting beside Sextus, son of Maximus, in the ergastulum beneath
+the training school of Bruttius Marius, which was well known to be the
+emperor's establishment, although maintained in the name of a citizen.
+There was a stone seat at the end where sunlight poured through a barred
+window high up in the wall.  To right and left facing a central corridor
+were cells with doors of latticed iron.  Each cell had its own barred
+window, hardly a foot square, set high out of reach and the light,
+piercing the latticed doors, made criss-cross patterns on the white wall
+of the corridor.  Narcissus got up, glanced into each cell and sat down
+again beside Sextus.
+
+"The trouble is, they don't," he went on.  "If you let them out, they
+drink and get into poor condition;  and if you keep them in, they kill
+themselves unless they're watched.  These men are reserved for Paulus,
+and they know they haven't a chance against him."
+
+"Paulus' luck won't last forever," Sextus remarked grimly.
+
+"No, nor his skill, I suppose.  But he doesn't debauch himself, so he's
+always in perfect condition."
+
+"Haven't you a man in here who might be made nervy enough to kill him?"
+Sextus asked.  "They would kill the man himself, of course, directly
+afterward, but we might undertake to enrich his relatives."
+
+Narcissus shook his head.
+
+"One might have a chance with the sword or with the net and trident,
+though I doubt it.  But Paulus uses a javelin and his aim is like
+lightning.  Only yesterday at practise they loosed eleven lions at him
+from eleven directions at the same moment. He slew them with eleven
+javelins, and each one stone dead.  Some of these men saw him do it,
+which hasn't encouraged them, I can tell you.  In the second place, they
+know Paulus is Commodus.  He might just as well go into the arena
+frankly as the emperor, for all the secret it is.  That substitute who
+occupies the royal pavilion when Commodus himself is in the arena no
+longer looks very much like him;  he is getting too loose under the
+chin, although a year ago you could hardly tell the two apart.  Even the
+mob knows Paulus is Commodus, although nobody dares to acclaim him
+openly.  Send a gladiator in against another gladiator and even though
+he may know that the other man can split a stick at twenty yards, he
+will do his best.  But let him know he goes against the emperor and he
+has no nerve to start with;  he can't aim straight;  he suspects his own
+three javelins and his shield and helmet have been tampered with.  I
+myself would be afraid to face Paulus, being not much good with the
+javelin in any case, besides being superstitious about killing emperors,
+who are gods, not men, or the senate and priests wouldn't say so.  It is
+the same in the races:  setting aside Caesar's skill, which is simply
+phenomenal, the other charioteers are all afraid of him."
+
+"If he isn't killed soon, Severus or one of the others will forestall us
+all," said Sextus.  "Pertinax has only one chance: to be on the throne
+before the other candidates know what is happening."
+
+Narcissus' bronze face lighted with a sudden smile that rippled all
+around the corners of his mouth, so that he looked like a genial satyr.
+
+"Speaking of killing," he said, "Marcia has ordered me to kill you the
+moment you make up your mind the time has come to strike!"
+
+"You promised her, of course?"
+
+"No, as it happens we were interrupted.  But she relies on me and if she
+ever begins to suspect me I would rather die in the arena than be racked
+and burned!"
+
+"Why not then?  How is this for a proposal?"  Sextus touched him on the
+shoulder.  "Substitute yourself and me for two of these men!  Send me in
+against him first.  If he kills me, you next. One of us might get him.
+I am lucky.  I believe the gods are interested in me, I have had so many
+escapes from death."
+
+"I haven't much faith in the gods," said Narcissus.  "They may be all
+like Commodus.  I heard Galen say that men created gods in their own
+image."
+
+Sextus smiled at him.
+
+"You have been listening, I suppose, to Marcia and her Christians."
+
+"Listening, yes, but I don't lean either way.  It doesn't seem to me
+that Christianity can do much for a man when javelins are in the air.
+And besides, to be frank with you, Sextus, I rather hope to make a
+little something for myself.  God though he is said to be, I would like
+to see Commodus killed for I loathe him. But I hope to survive him and
+obtain my freedom.  Pertinax would manumit me.  That is why I applied
+for the post of trainer in this beastly ergastulum.  It is bad enough to
+have to endure the gloom of men virtually condemned to death and looking
+for a chance to kill themselves, but it is better than treading the sand
+to have one's liver split, one's throat cut, and be dragged out with the
+hooks.  I have fought many a fight, but I liked each one less than the
+last."
+
+He got up and strode again along the corridor, glancing into the cells,
+where gladiators sat fettered to the wall.
+
+"This whole business is getting too confused for me," he grumbled,
+sitting down again.  "You want to kill Commodus, as is reasonable.
+Marcia has ordered me to kill you, which is unreasonable!  Yet for the
+present she protects you.  Why?  She knows you are Commodus' enemy.  She
+seems anxious to save Commodus.  Yet she encourages Pertinax, who
+doesn't want to be emperor;  he only dallies with the thought because
+Marcia helps Cornificia to persuade him!  Isn't that a confusion for
+you?  And now there's Bultius Livius.  As I understand it, Marcia caught
+him spying on her.  No woman in her senses would trust Livius; the man
+has snowbroth in his veins and slow fire in his head. Yet Marcia now
+heaps favors on him!"
+
+"That is my doing," said Sextus.
+
+"Are you mad then, too?"
+
+"Maybe!  I have persuaded Marcia that, now she has possession of the
+journal Livius was keeping, she can henceforth hold that over him and
+use him to advantage.  She can win his gratitude--"
+
+"He has none!"
+
+"--and at the same time hold over him the threat of exposure for
+connection with the Severus faction, and the Pescennius faction, and the
+Clodius Albinus faction.  He had it all down in his journal.  He can
+easily be involved in those conspiracies if Marcia isn't satisfied with
+his spying in her behalf."
+
+"Gemini!  The man will break down under the strain.  He has no stamina.
+He will denounce us all."
+
+"Let us hope so," Sextus answered.  "I am counting on it. Nothing but
+sudden danger will ever bring Pertinax up to the mark!  I gave a bond to
+Marcia for Livius' life."
+
+"Jupiter!  What kind of bond?  And what has come over Marcia that she
+accepted it?"
+
+"I guaranteed to her that I will not denounce herself to Commodus!  She
+saw the point.  She could never clear herself."
+
+"But how could you denounce her?  She can have you seized and silenced
+any time!  Weren't you in Cornificia's house, with the guard at the
+gate?  Why didn't she summon the praetorians and hand you over to them?"
+
+"Because Galen was there, too.  She loves him, trusts him, and Galen is
+my friend.  Besides, Pertinax would turn on her if she should have me
+killed.  Pertinax was my father's friend, and is mine.  Marcia's only
+chance, if Commodus should lose his life, is for Pertinax to seize the
+throne and continue to be her friend and protect her.  Any other
+possible successor to Commodus would have her head off in the same
+hour."
+
+"Well, Sextus, that argument won't keep her from having you murdered.  I
+am only hoping she won't order me to do it, because the cat will be out
+of the bag then.  I will not refuse, but I will certainly not kill you,
+and that will mean--"
+
+"You forget Norbanus and my freedmen," Sextus interrupted.  "She knows
+very well that they know all my secrets.  They would avenge me instantly
+by sending Commodus full information of the plot, involving Marcia head
+over heels.  She is ready to betray Commodus if that should seem the
+safest course.  If she is capable of treachery to him, she is equally
+sure to betray all her friends if she thought her own life were in
+danger!"
+
+"Now listen, Sextus, and don't speak too loud or they'll hear you in the
+cells;  any of these poor devils would jump at a chance to save his own
+skin by betraying you and me.  Talk softly.  I say, listen!  There isn't
+any safety anywhere with all these factions plotting each against the
+other, none knowing which will strike first and Commodus likely to
+pounce on all of them at any minute. I don't know why he hasn't heard of
+it already."
+
+"He is too busy training his body to have time to use his brain," said
+Sextus.  "However, go on."
+
+"I think Commodus is quite likely to have the best of it!" Narcissus
+said, screwing up his eyes as if he gazed at an antagonist across the
+dazzling sand of the arena.  "Somebody--some spy--is sure to inform him.
+There will be wholesale proscriptions.  Commodus will try to scare
+Severus, Niger and Albinus by slaughtering their supporters here in
+Rome.  I can see what is coming."
+
+"Are you, too, a god--like Commodus--that you can see so shrewdly?"
+
+"Never mind.  I can see.  And I can see a better way for you, and for me
+also.  You have made yourself a great name as Maternus, less, possibly,
+in Rome than on the countryside.  You have more to begin with than ever
+Spartacus had--"
+
+"Aye, and less, too," Sextus interrupted.  "For I lack his confidence
+that Rome can be brought to her knees by an army of slaves.  I lack his
+willingness to try to do it.  Rome must be saved by honorable Romans,
+who have Rome at heart and not their own personal ambition.  No army of
+runaway slaves can ever do it. Nothing offends me more than that
+Commodus makes slaves his ministers, and I mean by that no offense to
+you, Narcissus, who are fit to rank with Spartacus himself.  But I am a
+republican. It is not vengeance that I seek.  I will reckon I have lived
+if I have ridded Rome of Commodus and helped to replace him with a man
+who will restore our ancient liberties."
+
+"Liberties?"  Narcissus wore his satyr-smile again.  "It makes small
+difference to slaves and gladiators how much liberty the free men have!
+The more for them, the less for us!  Let us live while the living is
+good, Sextus!  Let us take to the mountains and help ourselves to what
+we need while Pertinax and all these others fight for too much!  Let
+them have their too much and grow sick of it!  What do you and I need
+beyond clothing, a weapon, armor, a girl or two and a safe place for
+retreat?  I have heard Sardinia is wonderful.  But if you still think
+you would rather haunt your old estates, where you know the people and
+they know you, so that you will be warned of any attempt to catch you,
+that will be all right with me.  We can swoop down on the inns along the
+main roads now and then, rob whom it is convenient to rob, and live like
+noblemen!"
+
+"Three years I have lived an outlaw's life," Sextus answered, "sneaking
+into Rome to borrow money from my father's friends to save me the
+necessity of stealing.  It is one thing to pretend to be a robber, and
+another thing to rob.  The robber's name makes nine men out of ten your
+secret well-wishers;  the deed makes you all men's enemy.  How do you
+suppose I have escaped capture?  It was simple enough.  Every robber in
+Italy has called himself Maternus, so that I have seemed to be here,
+there, everywhere, aye, and often in three or four places at once!  I
+have been caught and killed at least a dozen times!  But all the while
+my men and I were safe because we took care to harm nobody.  We let
+others do the murdering and robbing.  We have lived like hermits,
+showing ourselves only often enough to keep alive the Maternus legend."
+
+"Well, isn't that better than risking your neck trying to make and
+unmake emperors?" Narcissus asked.
+
+"I risk my neck each hour I linger in Rome!"
+
+"Well then, by Hercules, take payment for the risk, and cut the risk and
+vanish!" exclaimed Narcissus.  "Help yourself once and for all to a bag
+full of gold in exchange for your father's estates that were confiscated
+when they cut his head off.  Then leave Italy, and let us be outlaws in
+Sardinia."
+
+Sextus laughed.
+
+"That probably sounds glorious to one in your position.  I, too, rather
+enjoyed the prospect when I first made my escape from Antioch and
+discovered how easy the life was.  But though I owe it to my father's
+memory to win back his estates, even that, and present outlawry is small
+compared to the zeal I have for restoring Rome's ancient liberties.  But
+I don't deceive myself; I am not the man who can accomplish that;  I can
+only help the one who can, and will.  That one is Pertinax.  He will
+reverse the process that has been going on since Julius Caesar overthrew
+the old republic.  He will use a Caesar's power to destroy the edifice
+of Caesar and rebuild what Caesar wrecked!"
+
+Narcissus pondered that, his head between his hands.
+
+"I haven't Rome at heart," he said at last.  "Why should I have? There
+are girls, whom I have forgotten, whom I loved more than I love Rome.  I
+am a slave gladiator.  I have been applauded by the crowds, but know
+what that means, having seen other men go the same route.  I am an
+emperor's favorite, and I know what that means too;  I saw Cleander die;
+I have seen man after man, and woman after woman lose his favor
+suddenly.  Banishment, death, the ergastulum, torture--and, what is much
+worse, the insults the brute heaps on any one he turns against--I am too
+wise to give that--" he spat on the flag-stones--"for the friendship of
+Commodus.  And Commodus is Rome;  you can't persuade me he isn't. Rome
+turns on its favorites as he does--scorns them, insults them, throws
+them on dung-heaps.  That for Rome!"  He spat again. "They even break
+the noses off the statues of the men they used to idolize!  They even
+throw the statues on a dung-heap to insult the dead!  Why should I set
+Rome above my own convenience?"
+
+"Well, for instance, you could almost certainly buy your freedom by
+betraying me," said Sextus.  "Why don't you?"
+
+"Jupiter!  How shall a man answer that?  I suppose I don't betray you
+because if I did I should loathe myself.  And I prefer to like myself,
+which I contrive to do at intervals.  Also, I enjoy the company of
+honest men, and I think you are honest, although I think you are also an
+idealist--which, I take it, is the same thing as a born fool, or so I
+have begun to think, since I attend on the emperor and have to hear so
+much talk of philosophy.  Look you what philosophy has made of Commodus!
+Didn't Marcus Aurelius beget him from his own loins, and wasn't Marcus
+Aurelius the greatest of all philosophers?  Didn't he surround young
+Commodus with all the learned idealists he could find?  That is what I
+am told he did.  And look at Commodus!  Our Roman Commodus!  God
+Commodus!  I haven't murdered him because I am afraid, and because I
+don't see how I could gain by it.  I don't betray you because I would
+despise myself if I did."
+
+"I would despise myself if I should be untrue to Rome," Sextus answered
+after a moment.  "Commodus is not Rome.  Neither is the mob Rome."
+
+"What is then?" Narcissus asked.  "The bricks and mortar?  The marble
+that the slaves must haul under the lash?  The ponds where they feed
+their lampreys on dead gladiators?  The arena where a man salutes a
+dummy emperor before a disguised one kills him? The senate, where they
+buy and sell the consulates and praetorships and guaestorships?  The
+tribunals where justice goes by privilege?  The temples where as many
+gods as there are, Romans yell for sacrifices to enrich the priests?
+The farms where the slave-gangs labor like poor old Sysyphus and are
+sold off in their old age to the contractors who clear the latrines, or
+to the galleys, or, if they're lucky, to the lime-kilns where they dry
+up like sticks and die soon?  There is a woman in a side-street near the
+fish-market, who is very rich and looks like Rome to me.  She has so
+many gold rings on her fingers that you can't see the dirt underneath;
+and she owns so many brothels and wine-shops that she can even buy off
+the tax-collectors.  Do I love her?  Do I love Rome?  No! I love you,
+Sextus, son of Maximus, and I will go with you to the world's end if you
+will lead the way."
+
+"I love Rome," Sextus answered.  "Possibly I want to see her liberties
+restored because I love my own liberty and can't imagine myself
+honorable unless Rome herself is honored first. When you and I are sick
+we need a Galen.  Rome needs Pertinax. You ask me what is Rome?  She is
+the cradle of my manhood."
+
+"A befouled nest!" said Narcissus.
+
+"An Augean stable with a Hercules who doesn't do his work, I grant you!
+But we can substitute another Hercules."
+
+"Pertinax is too old," Narcissus objected, weakening, a trifle sulkily.
+
+"He is old enough to wish to die in honor rather than dishonor. You and
+I, Narcissus, have no honor--you a slave and I an outlaw. Let us win,
+then, honor for ourselves by helping to heal Rome of her dishonor!"
+
+"Oh well, have it your own way," said Narcissus, unconvinced.  "A brass
+as for your honor!  The alternative is death or liberty in either case,
+and as for me, I prefer friendship to religion, so I will follow you,
+whichever road you take.  Now go.  These fellows mustn't recognize you.
+It is time to take them one by one into the exercising yard.  I daren't
+take more than one at a time or they'd kill me even with the blunted
+practise-weapons.  I wish they might face Commodus as boldly as they
+tackle me!  I am a weary man, and many times a bruised one, I can tell
+you, when the night comes, after putting twenty of them through their
+paces."
+
+
+
+
+IX.  STEWED EELS
+
+
+
+The training arena where Commodus worked off energy and kept his
+Herculean muscles in condition was within the palace grounds, but the
+tunnel by which he reached it continued on and downward to the Circus
+Maximus, so that he could attend the public spectacles without much
+danger of assassination.
+
+Nevertheless, a certain danger still existed.  One of his worst frenzies
+of proscription had been started by a man who waited for him in the
+tunnel, and lost his nerve and then, instead of killing him, pretended
+to deliver an insulting message from the senate.  Since that time the
+tunnel had been lined with guards at regular intervals, and when
+Commodus passed through his mysterious "double" was obliged to walk in
+front of him surrounded by enough attendants to make any one not in the
+secret believe the double was the emperor himself.
+
+No man in the known world was less incapable than Commodus of self-
+defense against an armed man.  There was no deception about his feats of
+strength and skill;  he was undoubtedly the most terrific fighter and
+consummate athlete Rome had ever seen, and he was as proud of it as Nero
+once was of his "golden voice." But, as he explained to the fawning
+courtiers who shouldered one another for a place beside him as he
+hurried down the tunnel:
+
+"How could Rome replace me?  Yesterday I had to order a slave beaten to
+death for breaking a vase of Greek glass.  I can buy a hundred slaves
+for half what that glass cost Hadrian.  And I could have a thousand
+better senators tomorrow than the fools who belch and stammer in the
+curia, the senate house.  But where would you find another Commodus if
+some lurking miscreant should stab me from behind?  It was the geese
+that saved the capitol. You cacklers can preserve your Commodus."
+
+They agreed in chorus, it would be Rome's irreparable loss if he should
+die, and certain senators, more fertile than the others in expedients
+for drawing his attention to themselves, paused ostentatiously to hold a
+little conversation with the guards and promise them rewards if they
+should catch a miscreant lurking in wait to attack "our beloved, our
+glorious emperor."
+
+Commodus overheard them, as they meant he should.
+
+"And such fulsome idiots as those expect me to believe they can frame
+laws!"  He scowled over-shoulder.  "Write down their names for me,
+somebody.  The senate needs pruning!  I will purge it the way Galen used
+to purge me when I had the colic!  Cioscuri!  But these leaky babblers
+suffocate me!"
+
+He was true to the Caesarian tradition.  He believed himself a god.  He
+more than half-persuaded other men.  His almost superhuman energy and
+skill with weapons, his terrific storms of anger and his magnetism
+overawed courtiers and politicians as they did the gladiators whom he
+slew in the arena.  The strain of madness in his blood provided cunning
+that could mask itself beneath a princely bluster of indifference to
+consequences.  He could fear with an extravagance coequal to the fury of
+his love of danger, and his fear struck terror into men's hearts, as it
+stirred his mad brain into frenzies.
+
+He made no false claim when he called Rome the City of Commodus and
+himself the Roman Hercules.  The vast majority of Romans were unfit to
+challenge his contempt of them, and his contempt was never under cover
+for a moment.
+
+Debauchery, of wine and women, entered not at all into his private life
+although, in public, he encouraged it in others for the simple reason
+that it weakened men who otherwise might turn on him.  He was never
+guilty of excesses that might undermine his strength or shake his
+nerves;  there was an almost superhuman purity about his worship of
+athletic powers.  He outdid the Greeks in that respect.  But he allowed
+the legend of his monstrous orgies in the palace to gain currency,
+partly because that encouraged the Romans to debauch themselves and
+render themselves incapable of overthrowing him, and partly because it
+helped to cover up his trick of employing a substitute to occupy the
+royal pavilion at the games when he himself drove chariots in the races
+or fought in the arena as the gladiator Paulus.
+
+Men who had let wine and women ruin their own nerves knew it was
+impossible that any one, who lived as Commodus was said to do, could
+drive a chariot and wield a javelin as Paulus did.  Whoever faced a
+Roman gladiator under the critical gaze of a crowd that knew all the
+points of fighting and could instantly detect, and did instantly resent
+pretense, fraud, trickery, the poor condition of one combatant or the
+unwillingness of one man to have at another in deadly earnest, had to be
+not only in the pink of bodily condition but a fighter such as no
+drunken sensualist could ever hope to be.  So it was easy to suppress
+the scandal that the gladiator Paulus was the emperor himself, although
+half Rome half-believed it;  and the substitute who occupied the seat of
+honor at the games--ageing a little, growing a little pouchy under eyes
+and chin--was pointed to as proof that Commodus was being ruined by the
+life he led.
+
+The trick of making use of the same substitute to save the emperor the
+boredom of official ceremony, whenever there was no risk of the public
+coming close enough to detect the fraud, materially helped to strengthen
+the officially fostered argument that Commodus could not be Paulus.
+
+So the mystery of the identity of Paulus was like all court secrets and
+most secrets of intriguing governments, no mystery at all to hundreds,
+but to thousands an insoluble conundrum.  The official propagandists of
+the court news, absolutely in control of all the channels through which
+facts could reach the public, easily offset the constant leakage from
+the lips of slaves and gladiators by disseminating artfully concocted
+news.  Those actually in the secret, flattered by the confidence and
+fearful for their own skins, steadfastly denied the story when it
+cropped up.  Last, but not least, was the law, that made it sacrilege to
+speak in terms derogatory to the emperor.  A gladiator, though the crowd
+might almost deify him, was a casteless individual, unprivileged before
+the law, whom any franchised citizen would rate as socially far beneath
+himself.  To have identified the emperor with Paulus in a voice above a
+whisper would have made the culprit liable to death and confiscation of
+his goods.
+
+The substitute himself, a man of mystery, was kept in virtual
+imprisonment.  He was known as "Pavonius Nasor," not because that was
+his real name, which was known to very few people, but because of an old
+legend that the ghost of a certain Pavonius Nasor, murdered centuries
+ago and never buried, still walked in the neighborhood of that part of
+the palace where the emperor's substitute now led his mysterious, secret
+existence.
+
+There were plenty of whispered stories current as to his true identity.
+Some said he was an impoverished landholder whom Commodus had met by
+accident when traveling in Northern Italy. But it was much more commonly
+believed he was the emperor's twin brother, spirited away at birth by
+midwives, and the stories told to account for that were as remarkably
+unlikely as the tale itself;  as for instance, that a soothsayer had
+prophesied how Commodus should one day mount the throne and that he and
+his twin brother would wreck Rome in civil war--a warning hardly likely
+to have had much weight with the father, Marcus Aurelius, although the
+mother was more likely to have given credence to it.
+
+Whatever the truth of his origin, Pavonius Nasor never ran the risk of
+telling it.  He kept his sinecure by mastering his tongue, preserving
+almost bovine speechlessness.  When he and Commodus met face to face he
+never seemed to see the joke of the resemblance, never laughed at
+Commodus' obscenely vivid jibes at his expense, nor once complained of
+his anomalous position.  He appeared to be a man of no ambition other
+than to get through life as easily as might be--of no personal dignity,
+no ruling habits, but possessed of imitative talent that enabled him,
+without the slightest trouble, to adopt the very gait and gesture of the
+emperor whom he impersonated.
+
+
+As he strode ahead along the tunnel he received the guards' salute with
+merely enough nod of recognition to deceive an onlooker not in the
+secret.  (It was Pavonius Nasor's half-indulgent, rather lazy smile that
+had persuaded Rome and even the praetorian guards that Commodus was an
+easy-going, sensual, good humored man.)
+
+There was a box at one end of the private arena, over the gate where the
+horses entered, so placed as to avoid the sun's direct rays.  It was
+reached by a short stairway from an anteroom that opened on the tunnel.
+There was no other means of access to the box.  It's wooden sidewalls,
+finished to resemble gilded eagle's wings, projected over the arena so
+that it was well screened and in shadow.  There was none, observing from
+below, who could have sworn it had not been the emperor himself who sat
+in the box and watched Paulus the gladiator showing off his skill.
+
+The assembled gladiators, perfectly aware of Paulus' true identity, went
+through the farce of solemnly saluting as the emperor the man who stared
+down at them from beneath an awning's shadow between golden eagle's
+wings, and who returned the salute with a wave of the arm that all Rome
+could have recognized.
+
+Commodus, nearly as naked as when he was born, came running from a
+dressing room and pranced and leaped over the sand to bring the sweat-
+beads to his skin;  then, snatching at the nearest gladiator, wrestled
+with him until the breathless victim cried for mercy;  dropped him then,
+as crushed as if a python had left a job half-finished, and shouted for
+the ashen sword-sticks.  In a minute, with a leather buckler on his left
+arm, he was parrying the thrusts and blows of six men, driving and so
+crowding them on one another's toes that only two could seriously answer
+the terrific flailing of his own ash stick.  He named them, named his
+blow, and laid them one by one, half-stunned and bleeding on the sand,
+until the last one by a quick feint landed on him, raising a great
+crimson welt across his shoulders.
+
+"Well done!" Commodus exclaimed and smote him on the skull so fiercely
+that he broke the sword-stick.  "You have killed him," said a senator as
+two men promptly seized the victim's arms to drag him out.
+
+"Possibly," said Commodus.  "That blow I landed on him would have killed
+a horse.  But he is fortunate.  He dies proud--prouder than you ever
+will, Varronius!  He got past Paulus' guard!  Would you like to attempt
+it?  Woman!  How I loathe you soft, effeminate, sleek senators!  You
+fear death and you fear life equally!  Where is Narcissus?  Where are
+those men who are to try to kill me at my birthday games?"
+
+There was no answer from Narcissus.  Commodus forgot him in a moment,
+called for javelins and hurled them at a target, then at half-a-dozen
+targets, hitting all six marks exactly in the middle as he spun himself
+on one heel.
+
+"I am in fettle!" he exclaimed, clapping the back of the senator whom he
+had scurrilously insulted a moment ago.  If he was conscious of applause
+from the group of courtiers and gladiators he gave no sign of it.  What
+pleased him was his own ability, not their praises.
+
+"Lions!" he said.  "Loose that big one!"
+
+"Paulus," a scarred veteran answered (they were all forbidden to address
+him by any other name in that arena), "you have ordered us to keep that
+fellow for the birthday games.  If you keep killing all the best ones
+off at practise, what shall we do when the day comes?  The last ship-
+load has arrived from Africa and already you have used up nearly half of
+them.  There is no chance of another cargo arriving in time for the
+games.  And besides, we have lacked corpses recently;  that big one
+hasn't tasted man's flesh.  He is hungry now.  He will eat whatever we
+throw in, so let him taste the right meat that will make him savage."
+
+"Loose a leopard then."
+
+The veteran went off without a word to give his orders to the men below-
+ground, whose duty it was to drag the cages to the openings of tunnels
+in the masonry through which the animals emerged into the sunlight.
+There were ten such openings on either side of the arena, closed by
+trapdoors, set in grooves, that could be raised by ropes from overhead.
+
+Commodus picked up one javelin and poised it.  Half-a-dozen gladiators
+watched him, paying no attention to the doors, through any one of which
+the animal might come.  They knew their Paulus, and were trained,
+besides, to look at death or danger with a curious, contemptuous calm.
+But the courtiers were nervous, grouping themselves where the sunlight
+threw a V-shaped shadow on the sand, as if they thought that semi-
+twilight would protect them.
+
+A wooden door rose squeaking in its grooves but Commodus kept his back
+toward it.
+
+"Women!" he exclaimed.
+
+His sudden scowl transformed his handsome face into a thing of horror.
+He began to mutter savagely obscene abuse.  A leopard crept into the
+sunlight, tried to turn again but was prevented by the closing trap, and
+crouched against the arena wall.
+
+"Beware!  The beast comes!" said a gladiator.
+
+"Hold your presumptuous tongue, you slave-born rascal!" Commodus
+retorted.  "Take that yapping dog away and have him whipped!"
+
+A man stepped from the entrance gate to beckon the offending gladiator,
+who walked out with a look of hatred on his face.  He paused once,
+hesitating whether to ask mercy, and thought better of it, shrugging his
+fine bronzed shoulders.  The leopard left the wall and crept toward the
+center of the sand, his black and yellow beauty rippling in the sunlight
+and his shadow looking like death's trailing cloak.  The courtiers
+seemed doubtful which of the two beasts to watch, leopard or emperor.
+
+"A spear!" said Commodus.  A gladiator put it in his hand.
+
+"Varronius!  It irks me to have cowards in the senate!  Let me see you
+try to kill that leopard!"
+
+Decadent and grown effeminate though Rome was, there was no patrician
+who had not received some training in the use of arms. Varronius took
+the spear at once, his white hands closing on the shaft with military
+firmness.  But his white face gave the lie to the alacrity with which he
+strode out of the shadow.
+
+"Kill him, and you shall have the consulate next year!" said Commodus.
+"Be killed, and there will be one useless bastard less to clutter up the
+curia!"
+
+A flush of anger swept over the senator's pale face.  For a moment he
+looked almost capable of lunging with the spear at Commodus--but
+Commodus was toying with the javelin.  Varronius strode out to face the
+leopard, and the lithe beast did not wait to feel the spear-point.  It
+began to stalk its adversary in irregular swift curves.  Its body almost
+pressed the sand.  Its eyes were spots of sunlit topaz.  Commodus' frown
+vanished.  He began to gloat over the leopard's subtlety and strength.
+
+"He is a lovelier thing than you, Varronius!  He is a better fighter!
+He is manlier!  He is worth more!  He has kept his body stronger and his
+wits more nimble!  He will get you!  By the Dioscuri, he will get you!
+I will bet a talent that he gets you--and I hope he does!  You hold your
+spear the way a woman holds a distaff--but observe the way he gathers
+all his strength in readiness to leap instantly in any direction!  Ah!"
+
+The leopard made a feint, perhaps to test the swiftness of the spear-
+point.  Leaping like a flash of light, he seemed to change direction in
+mid-air, the point missing him by half a hand's breadth.  One terrific
+claw, outreaching as he turned, ripped open Varronius' tunic and brought
+a little stream of crimson trickling down his left arm.
+
+"Good!" Commodus remarked.  "First blood to the braver!  Who would like
+to bet with me?"
+
+"I!" Varronius retorted from between set teeth, his eyes fixed on the
+leopard that had recommenced his swift strategic to-and-fro stalking
+movement.
+
+"I have betted you the consulship already.  Who else wants to bet?"
+asked Commodus.
+
+Before any one could answer the leopard sprang in again at Varronius,
+who stepped aside and drove his spear with very well timed accuracy.
+Only force enough was lacking.  The point slit the leopard's skin and
+made a stinging wound along the beast's ribs, turning him the way a
+spur-prick turns a horse.  His snarl made Varronius step back another
+pace or two, neglecting his chance to attack and drive the spear-point
+home.  The infuriated leopard watched him for a moment, ears back, tail
+spasmodically twitching, then shot to one side and charged straight at
+the group of courtiers.
+
+They scattered.  They were almost unarmed.  There were three of them who
+stumbled, interfering with each other.  The nearest to the leopard drew
+a dagger with a jeweled hilt, a mere toy with a light blade hardly
+longer than his hand.   He threw his toga over his left forearm and
+stood firm to make a fight for it, his white face rigid and his eyes
+ablaze.  The leopard leaped--and fell dead, hardly writhing.  Commodus'
+long javelin had caught him in the middle of his spring, exactly at the
+point behind the shoulder-bone that leaves a clear course to the heart.
+
+
+"I would not have done that for a coward, Tullius!  If you had run I
+would have let him kill you!"
+
+Commodus strode up and pulled out the javelin, setting one foot on the
+leopard and exerting all his strength.
+
+"Look here, Varronius.  Do you see how deep my blade went?  Pin-pricks
+are no use against man or animal.  Kill when you strike, like great Jove
+with his thunderbolts!  Life isn't a game between Maltese kittens;  it's
+a spectacle in which the strong devour the weak and all the gods look
+on!  Loose another leopard there! I'll show you!"
+
+He took the spear from Varronius, balanced it a moment, discarded it and
+chose another, feeling its point with his thumb.  There was a squeak of
+pulleys as they loosed a leopard near the end of the arena.  He charged
+the animal, leaping from foot to foot.  He made prodigious leaps;  there
+was no guessing which way he would jump next.  He was not like a human
+being.  The leopard, snarling, slunk away, attempting to avoid him, but
+he crowded it against the wall.  He forced it to turn at bay.  No eye
+was quick enough to see exactly how he killed it, save that he struck
+when the leopard sprang.  The next thing that anybody actually saw, he
+had the writhing creature on the spear, in air, like a legion's
+standard.
+
+Then the madness surged into his brain.
+
+"So I rule Rome!" he exclaimed, and threw the leopard at the gladiators'
+feet.  "Because I pity Rome that could not find another Paulus!  I
+strike first, before they strike me!"
+
+They flattered him--fawned on him, but he was much too genuinely mad for
+flattery to take effect.  "If you were worth a barrelful of rats I'd
+have a senate that might save me trouble!  Then like Tiberius I might
+remain away from Rome and live more like a god. I've more than half a
+mind to let my dummy stay here to amuse you wastrels!"  He glanced up at
+the box, where his substitute lolled and yawned and smiled.  "All you
+degenerates need is some one you can rub yourselves against like fat
+cats mewing for a bowl of milk!  By Hercules, now I'll show you
+something that will make your blood leap.  Bring out the new Spanish
+team."
+
+With an imperious gesture he sent senators and gladiators to scatter
+themselves all over the arena.  Not yet satisfied, he ordered all the
+guards fetched from the tunnel and arranged them in a similar disorder,
+so that finally no stretch of fifty yards was left without a man
+obstructing it.  There was no spina down the midst, nor anything except
+the surrounding wall to suggest to a team of horses which the course
+might be.
+
+"Let none move!" he commanded.  "I will crush the foot of any man who
+stirs!"
+
+Attendants, clinging to the heads of four gray stallions that fought and
+kicked, brought out his chariot and others shut the gate behind it.
+Commodus admired the team a minute, then examined the new high wheels of
+the gilded chariot, that was hardly wider than a coffin--a thing that a
+man could upset with a shove and built to look as flimsy as an egg
+shell.  Suddenly he seized the reins and leaped in, throwing up his
+right hand.
+
+If he could have ruled his empire as he drove that chariot he would have
+far outshone Augustus, for whose memory men sighed. He managed them with
+one hand.  There was magnetism sent along the reins to play with the
+dynamic energy of four mad stallions as gods amuse themselves with men.
+If empire had amused him as athleticism did there would have been no
+equal in all history to Commodus.
+
+In a chariot no other athlete could have balanced, on a course providing
+not one unobstructed stretch of fifty yards, he drove like Phoebus
+breaking in the horses of the Sun, careering this and that way, weaving
+patterns in among the frightened men who stood like posts for him to
+drive around.  He missed them by a hand's breadth--less!  He took
+delight in driving at them, turning in the last half-second, smiling at
+a blanched face as he wheeled and wove new figures down another zigzag
+avenue of men. The frenzy of the team inspired him;  the rebellion of
+the stallions, made mad by the persistent, sudden turns, aroused his own
+astonishing enthusiasm.  He accomplished the impossible!  He made new
+laws of motion, breaking them, inventing others!  He became a god in
+action, mastering the team until it had no consciousness of any self-
+will, or of any impulse but to loose its full strength under the
+directing will of genius.
+
+The team tired first.  It was its waning speed that wearied him at last.
+The mania that owned him could not tolerate the anticlimax of declining
+effort, so his mood changed.  He became morose--indifferent.  He reined
+in, tossed the reins to an attendant and began to walk toward the tunnel
+entrance, clothed as he was in nothing but the practise loin-cloth of a
+gladiator.
+
+A dozen senators implored him to wait and clothe himself.  He would not
+wait.  He ordered them to bring his cloak and overtake him.  Then he
+observed Narcissus, standing near the horse-gate, waiting to summon his
+trained gladiators for an exhibition:
+
+"Not this time, Narcissus.  Next time.  Follow me."  He waited for a
+moment for Narcissus.  That gave the substitute time to come down from
+the box and go hurrying ahead into the tunnel-mouth;  he went so fast
+(for he knew the emperor's moods) that the attendants found it hard to
+keep up;  most of them were half a dozen paces in the rear.  A senator
+gave Commodus his cloak. He took Narcissus by the arm and strode ahead
+into the tunnel, muttering, ignoring noisy protests from the senators,
+who warned him that the guards were not yet there.
+
+
+Then there was sudden silence;  possibly a consequence of Caesar's mood,
+or the reaction caused by chill and tunnel-darkness after sunlit sand.
+Or it might have been the shadow of impending tragedy.  A long scream
+broke the silence, thrice repeated, horrible, like something from an
+unseen world. Instantly Narcissus leaped ahead into the darkness,
+weaponless but armed by nature with the muscles of a panther.  Commodus
+leaped after him;  his mood reversed again.  Now emulation had him;  he
+would not be beaten to a scene of action by a gladiator. He let his
+cloak fall and a senator tripped over it.
+
+There were no lamps.  Something less than twilight, deepened here and
+there by shadow, filled the tunnel.  By a niche intended for a sentry
+the attendants were standing helplessly around the body of a man who lay
+with head and shoulders propped against the wall.  Narcissus and
+another, like knotted snakes, were writhing near by.  There was a sound
+of choking.  Pavonius Nasor was silent.  He appeared already dead.
+
+"Pluto!  Is there no light?" Commodus demanded.  "What has happened?"
+
+"They have killed your shadow, sire!"
+
+"Who killed him?"
+
+"Men who sprang out of the darkness suddenly."
+
+"One man.  Only one.  I have him here.  He lives yet, but he dies!"
+Narcissus said.
+
+He dragged a writhing body on the flagstones, holding it by one wrist.
+
+"He was armed.  I had to throttle him to save my liver from his knife.
+I think I broke his neck.  He is certainly dying," said Narcissus.
+
+Some one had gone for a lamp and came along the tunnel with it.
+
+"Let me look," said Commodus.  "Here, give me that lamp!"
+
+He looked first at Pavonius Nasor, who gazed back, at him with stupid,
+passionless, already dimming eyes.  A stream of blood was gushing from
+below his left arm.
+
+"Now the gods of heaven and hell, and all the strange gods that have no
+resting place, and all the spirits of the air and earth and sea, defile
+your spirit!" Commodus exploded.  "Careless, irresponsible, ungrateful
+fool!  You have deprived me of my liberty!  You let yourself be killed
+like any sow under the butcher's knife, and dare to leave me shadowless?
+Then die like carrion and rot unburied!"
+
+He began to kick him, but the stricken man's lips moved. Commodus bent
+down and tried to   listen--tried again, mastered impatience and at last
+stood upright, shaking both fists at the tunnel roof.
+
+"Omnipotent Progenitor of Lightnings!" he exploded.  "He says he should
+have had stewed eels tonight!"
+
+The watching senators mistook that for a cue to laugh.  Their laughter
+touched off all the magazines of Caesar's rage.  He turned into a mania.
+He tore at his own hair.  He tore off his loin-cloth and stood naked.
+He tried to kill Narcissus, because Narcissus was the nearest to him.
+His crashing centurion's parade voice filled the tunnel.
+
+"Dogs!  Dogs' ullage!  Vipers!" he yelled.  "Who slew my shadow? Who did
+it?  This is a conspiracy!  Who hatched it?  Bring my tablets!  Warn the
+executioners!  What is Commodus without his dummy?  Vultures!  Better
+have killed me than that poor obliging fool!  You cursed, stupid idiots!
+You have killed my dummy!  I must sit as he did and look on.  I must
+swallow stinking air of throne-rooms.  I must watch sluggards fight--you
+miserable, wanton imbeciles!  It is Paulus you have killed!  Do you
+appreciate that?  Jupiter, but I will make Rome pay for this! Who did
+it?  Who did it, I say?"
+
+Rage blinded him.  He did not see the choking wretch whose wrist
+Narcissus twisted, until he struck at Narcissus again and, trying to
+follow him, stumbled over the assassin.
+
+"Who is this?  Give me a sword, somebody!  Is this the murderer? Bring
+that lamp here!"
+
+Bolder than the others, having recently been praised, the senator
+Tullius brought the lamp and, kneeling, held it near the culprit's face.
+The murderer was beyond speech, hardly breathing, with his eyes half-
+bursting from the sockets and his tongue thrust forward through his
+teeth because Narcissus' thumbs had almost strangled him.
+
+"A Christian," said Tullius.
+
+There was a note of quiet exultation in his voice.  The privileges of
+the Christians were a sore point with the majority of senators.
+
+"A what?" demanded Commodus.
+
+"A Christian.  See--he has a cross and a fish engraved on bone and wears
+it hung from his neck beneath his tunic.  Besides, I think I recognize
+the man.  I think he is the one who waylaid Pertinax the other day and
+spoke strange stuff about a whore on seven hills whose days are
+numbered."
+
+He had raised up the man's head by the hair.  Commodus stamped on the
+face with the flat of his sandal, crushing the head on the flagstones.
+
+"Christian!" he shouted.  "Is this Marcia's doing?  Is this Marcia's
+expedient to keep me out of the arena?  Too long have I endured that
+rabble!  I will rid Rome of the brood!  They kill the shadow--they shall
+feel the substance!"
+
+Suddenly he turned on his attendants--pointed at the murderer and his
+victim:
+
+"Throw those two into the sewer!  Strip them--strip them now--let none
+identify them.  Seize those spineless fools who let the murder happen.
+Tie them.  You, Narcissus--march them back to the arena.  Have them
+thrown into the lions' cages.  Stay there and see it done, then come and
+tell me."
+
+The courtiers backed away from him as far out of the circle of the
+lamplight as the tunnel-wall would let them.  He had snatched the lamp
+from Tullius.  He held it high.
+
+"Two parts of me are dead;  the shadow that was satisfied with eels for
+supper and the immortal Paulus whom an empire worshiped. Remains me--the
+third part--Commodus!  You shall regret those two dead parts of me!"
+
+He hurled the lighted lamp into the midst of them and smashed it, then,
+in darkness, strode along the tunnel muttering and cursing as he went--
+stark naked.
+
+
+
+
+X.  "ROME IS TOO MUCH RULED BY WOMEN!"
+
+
+
+"He is in the bath," said Marcia.  She and Galen were alone with
+Pertinax, who looked splendid in his official toga.  She was herself in
+disarray.  Her woman had tried to dress her hair on the way in the
+litter;  one long coil of it was tumbling on her shoulder.  She looked
+almost drunken.
+
+"Where is Flavia Titiana?" she demanded.
+
+"Out," said Pertinax and shut his lips.  He never let himself discuss
+his wife's activities.  The peasant in him, and the orthodox grammarian,
+preferred less scandalous subjects.
+
+Marcia stared long at him, her liquid, lazy eyes, suggesting banked
+fires in their depths, looking for signs of spirit that should rise to
+the occasion.  But Pertinax preferred to choose his own occasions.
+
+"Commodus is in the bath," Marcia repeated.  "He will stay there until
+night comes.  He is sulking.  He has his tablets with him--writes and
+writes, then scratches out.  He has shown what he writes to nobody, but
+he has sent for Livius."
+
+"We should have killed that dog," said Pertinax, which brought a sudden
+laugh from Galen.
+
+"A dog's death never saved an empire," Galen volunteered.  "If you had
+murdered Livius the crisis would have come a few days sooner, that is
+all."
+
+"It is the crisis.  It has come," said Marcia.  "Commodus came storming
+into my apartment, and I thought he meant to kill me with his own hands.
+Usually I am not afraid of him.  This time he turned my strength to
+water.  He yelled 'Christians!' at me, 'Christians!  You and your
+Christians!'  He was unbathed.  He was half-naked.  He was sweaty from
+his exercise.  His hair was ruffled;  he had torn out some of it.  His
+scowl was frightful--it was freezing."
+
+"He is quite mad," Galen commented.
+
+"I tried to make him understand this could not be a plot or I would
+certainly have heard of it," Marcia went on with suppressed excitement.
+"I said it was the madness of one fanatic, that nobody could foresee.
+He wouldn't listen.  He out-roared me.  He even raised his fist to
+strike.  He swore it was another of my plans to keep him out of the
+arena.  I began to think it might be wiser to admit that.  Even in his
+worst moods he is sometimes softened by the thought that I take care of
+him and love him enough to risk his anger.  But not this time!  He flew
+into the worst passion I have ever seen.  He returned to his first
+obsession, that the Christians plotted it and that I knew all about it.
+He swore he will butcher the Christians.  He will rid Rome of them.  He
+says, since he can not play Paulus any longer he will out-play Nero."
+
+"Where is Sextus?" Pertinax asked.
+
+"Aye! Where is Sextus!"
+
+Marcia glared at Galen.
+
+"We have to thank you for Sextus!  You persuaded Pertinax to shield
+Sextus.  Pertinax persuaded me."
+
+"You did it!" Galen answered dryly.  "It is what we do that matters.
+Squealing like a pig under a gate won't remedy the matter.  You foresaw
+the crisis long ago.  Sextus has been very useful to you.  He has kept
+you informed, so don't lower yourself by turning on him now.  What is
+the latest news about the other factions?"
+
+Marcia restrained herself, biting her lip.  She loved old Galen, but she
+did not relish being told the whole responsibility was hers, although
+she knew it.
+
+"There is no news," she answered.  "Nobody has heard a word about the
+murder yet.  Commodus has had the bodies thrown into the sewer.  But
+there are spies in the palace--"
+
+"To say nothing of Bultius Livius," Pertinax added.  He was clicking the
+rings on his fingers--symptom of irresolution that made Marcia grit her
+teeth.
+
+"The other factions are watching one another," Marcia went on. "They are
+irresolute because they have no leader near enough to Rome to strike
+without warning.  Why are you irresolute?"  She looked so hard at
+Pertinax that he got up and began to pace the floor.  "Severus and his
+troops are in Pannonia.  Pescennius Niger is in Syria.  Clodius Albinus
+is in Britain.  The senators are all so jealous and afraid for their own
+skins that they are as likely as not to betray one another to Commodus
+the minute they learn that a crisis exists.  If they hear that Commodus
+is writing out proscription lists they will vie with one another to
+denounce their own pet enemies--including you--and me!" she added.
+
+"There is one chance yet," said Pertinax.  "Bultius Livius may have
+enough wisdom to denounce the leaders of the other factions and to clear
+us.  None of the others would be grateful to him. That Carthaginian
+Severus, for instance, is invariably spiteful to the men who do him
+favors.  Bultius Livius may see that to protect us is his safest course,
+as well as best for Rome."
+
+He had more to say, but Marcia's scorn interrupted him.  Galen chuckled.
+
+"Rome!  He cares only for Bultius Livius.  It is now or never,
+Pertinax!"
+
+Marcia's intense emotion made her appear icily indifferent, but she did
+not deceive Galen, although Pertinax welcomed her calmness as excusing
+unenthusiasm in herself.
+
+"Marcia is right," said Galen.  "It is now or never.  Marcia ought to
+know Commodus!"
+
+"Know him?" she exploded.  "I can tell you step by step what he will do!
+He will come out of the bath and eat a light meal, but he will drink
+nothing, for fear of poison.  Presently he will be thirsty and lonely,
+and will send for me;  and whatever he feels, he will pretend he loves
+me.  When the raging fear is on him he will never drink from any one but
+me.  He will take a cup of wine from my hands, making me taste it first.
+Then he will go alone into his own room, where only that child
+Telamonion will dare to follow.  Everything depends then on the child.
+If the child should happen to amuse him he will turn sentimental and I
+will dare to go in and talk to him.  If not--"
+
+Galen interrupted.
+
+"Madness," he said, "resembles many other maladies, there being symptoms
+frequently for many years before the slow fire bursts into a blaze.
+Some die before the outbreak, being burned up by the generating process,
+which is like a slow fire.  But if they survive until the explosion, it
+is more violent the longer it has been delayed.  And in the case of
+Commodus that means that other men will die.  And women," he added,
+looking straight at Marcia.
+
+"If he even pretends he loves me--I am a woman," said Marcia.  "I love
+him in spite of his frenzies.  If I only had myself to think of--"
+
+"Think then!" Galen interrupted.  "If you can't think for yourself, do
+you expect to benefit the world by thinking?"
+
+Marcia buried her face in her hands and lay face downward on the couch.
+She was trembling in a struggle for self-mastery. Pertinax chewed at his
+finger-nails, which were the everlasting subject of his proud wife's
+indignation;  he never kept his fine hands properly;  the peasant in him
+thought such refinements effeminate, unsoldierly.  Cornificia, who could
+have made him submit even to a manicure, understood him too well to
+insist.
+
+"Galen!" said Marcia, sitting up suddenly.
+
+The old man blinked.  He recognized decision sudden and irrevocable.  He
+clenched his fingers and his lower lip came forward by the fraction of
+an inch.
+
+"I must save my Christians.  What do you know about poisons?" she
+demanded.
+
+"Less than many people," Galen answered.  "I have studied antidotes.  I
+am a doctor.  Those I poisoned thought as I did, that I gave them
+something for their health.  My methods have changed with experience.
+Doctoring is like statesmanship--which is to say, groping in the dark
+through mazes of misinformation."
+
+"Know you a poison," asked Marcia, "that will not harm one who merely
+tastes it, but will kill whoever drinks a quantity? Something without
+flavor?  Something colorless that can be mixed with wine?  Know you a
+safe poison, Galen?"
+
+"Aye--irresolution!" Galen answered.  "I will not be made a victim of
+it.  Who shall aspire to the throne if Commodus dies?"
+
+"Pertinax!"
+
+Pertinax looked startled, stroking his beard, uncrossing his knees.
+
+"Then let Pertinax do his own work," said Galen.  "Rome is full of
+poisoners, but hasn't Pertinax a sword?"
+
+"Aye.  And it has been the emperor's until this minute," Pertinax said
+grimly.  "Galen tells us Commodus is mad.  And I agree that Rome
+deserves a better emperor.  But whether I am fit to be that emperor is
+something not yet clear to me.  I doubt it.  Whom the Fates select for
+such a purpose, they compel, and he is unwise who resists them.  I will
+not resist.  But let there be no doubt on this point:  I will not slay
+Commodus.  I will not draw sword against the man to whom I owe my
+fortune.  I am not an ingrate. Sextus lives for his revenge.  If you
+should ask me I would answer, Sextus planned this murder in the tunnel
+and the blow was meant for Commodus himself.  I am inclined to deal with
+Sextus firmly.  It is not too late.  There is a chance that Commodus,
+deprived now of his opportunities to make himself a spectacle, may bend
+his energies to government.  Madman though he is, he is the emperor, and
+if he is disposed now to govern well, with capable advisers, I would be
+the last to turn on him."
+
+"If he will be advised by you?" suggested Marcia, her accent tart with
+sarcasm.  "What will you advise him about Sextus?"
+
+"There are plenty of ways of getting rid of Sextus without killing him,"
+said Pertinax.  "He is a young man needing outlets for his energy and
+fuel for his pride.  If he were sent to Parthia, in secret, as an agent
+authorized to penetrate that country and report on military,
+geographical and economic facts--"
+
+"He would refuse to go!" said Galen.  "And if made to go, he would
+return!  O Pertinax--!"
+
+"Be quiet!" Pertinax retorted irritably.  "I will not submit to being
+lectured.  I am Governor of Rome--though you are Galen the philosopher.
+And I remember many of your adages this minute, as for instance:  'It is
+he who acts who is responsible.'  To kill an emperor is easy, Galen.  To
+replace him is as difficult as to fit a new head to a body.  We have
+talked a lot of treason, most of it nonsense.  I have listened to too
+much of it.  I am as guilty as the others.  But when it comes to slaying
+Commodus and standing in his shoes--"
+
+Marcia interrupted.
+
+"By the great Twin Brethren, Pertinax!  Who can be surprised that Flavia
+Titiana seeks amusement in the arms of other men!  Does Cornificia
+endure such peasant talk?  Or do you keep it to impose on us as a relief
+from her more noble conversation?  Dea Dia! Had I known how spineless
+you can be I would have set my cap at Lucius Severus long ago.  It may
+be it is not too late."
+
+She had him!  She had pricked him in the one place where he could be
+stirred to spitefulness.  His whole face crimsoned suddenly.
+
+"That Carthaginian!"  He came and stood in front of her.  "If you had
+favored him you should have foregone my friendship, Marcia! Commodus is
+bad enough.  Severus would be ten times worse!  Where Commodus is merely
+crazy, Lucius Severus is a calculating, ice-cold monster of cruelty!  He
+has no emotions except those aroused by venom!  He would tear out your
+heart just as swiftly as mine! As for plotting with him, he would let
+you do it all and then denounce you to the senate after he was on the
+throne!"
+
+"Either it must be Severus, or else you!" said Marcia.  "Which is it to
+be?"
+
+Pertinax folded his arms.
+
+"I would feel it my duty to preserve Rome from Severus.  But you go too
+fast.  Our Commodus is on the throne--"
+
+"And writes proscription lists!" said Marcia.  "Who knows what names are
+on the lists already?  Who knows what Bultius Livius may have told him?
+Who knows which of us will be alive tomorrow morning?  Who knows what
+Sextus is doing?  If Sextus has heard of this crisis he will seize the
+moment and either arouse the praetorian guard to mutiny or else reach
+Commodus himself and slay him with his own hand! Sextus is a man!  Are
+you no more than Flavia Titiana's cuckold and Cornificia's plaything?"
+
+"I am a Roman," Pertinax retorted angrily.  "I think of Rome before
+myself.  You women only think of passion and ambition. Rome--city of a
+thousand triumphs!"  He turned away, pacing the floor again, knitting
+his fingers behind him.  "Pertinax would offer up himself if he might
+bring back the Augustan days--if he might win the warfare that Tiberius
+lost.  One Pertinax is nothing in the life of Rome.  One life, three-
+quarters spent, is but a poor pledge to the gods--yet too much to be
+thrown away in vain.  The auguries are all mixed nowadays.  I doubt
+them.  I mistrust the shaven priests who dole out answers in return for
+minted money.  I have knelt before the holy shrine of Vesta, but the
+Virgins were as vague as the Egyptian who prophesied--"
+
+He hesitated.
+
+"What?" demanded Marcia.
+
+"That I should serve Rome and receive ingratitude.  What else does any
+man receive who serves Rome?  They who cheat her are the ones who
+prosper!"
+
+"Send for Cornificia," said Marcia.  "She keeps your resolution. Let her
+come and loose it!"  Pertinax turned sharply on her.
+
+"Flavia Titiana shall not suffer that indignity.  Cornificia can not
+enter this house."
+
+But the mention of Cornificia's name wrought just as swift a change in
+him as had the name of Lucius Severus.  He began to bite his finger-
+nails, then clenched his hands again behind him, Galen and Marcia
+watching.
+
+"You are the only one who can replace Commodus without drenching Rome in
+blood," said Marcia, remembering a phrase of Cornificia's.  And since
+the words were Cornificia's, and stirred the chords of many memories,
+they produced a sort of half-way resolution.
+
+"It is now or never," Marcia said, goading him.  But Pertinax shook his
+head.
+
+"I am not convinced, though I would do my best to save Rome from
+Severus.  Dioscuri!--do you realize, this plot to make me emperor is
+known to not more than a dozen--"
+
+"Therein safety lies," said Marcia.  "Yourself included there can only
+be a dozen traitors!"
+
+"Rome is too much ruled by women!  I will not kill Commodus, and I will
+give him this one chance," said Pertinax.  "I will protect him, unless
+and until I shall discover proof that he intends to turn on you, or me,
+or any of my friends."
+
+"You may discover that too late!" said Marcia;  but she seemed to
+understand him and looked satisfied.  "Come tonight to the palace--
+Galen," she added, "come you also--and bring poison!"
+
+Galen met her gaze and shut his lips tight.
+
+"Galen," she said, "either you will do this or--I have been your friend.
+Now be you mine!  It is too risky to send one of my slaves to fetch a
+poison.  You are to come tonight and bring the poison with you.
+Otherwise--you understand?"
+
+"You are extremely comprehensible!" said Galen, pursing up his lips.
+
+"You will obey?"
+
+"I must," said Galen.  But he did not say whether he would obey her or
+his inclination.  Pertinax, eyeing him doubtfully, seemed torn between
+suspicion of him and respect for long-tried friendship.
+
+"May we depend on you?" he asked.  He laid a hand on Galen's shoulder,
+bending over him.
+
+"I am an old man," Galen answered.  "In any event I have not long to
+live.  I will do my best--for you."
+
+Pertinax nodded, but there was still a question in his mind.  He bade
+farewell to Marcia, turning his back toward Galen.  Marcia whispered:
+
+"Be a man now, Pertinax!  If we should lose this main, we two can drink
+the stuff that Galen brings."
+
+"There was a falling star last night," said Pertinax.  "Whose was it?"
+
+Marcia studied his face a moment.  Then:
+
+"There will be a rising sun tomorrow!" she retorted.  "Whose will it be?
+Yours!  Play the man!"
+
+
+
+
+XI.  GALEN
+
+
+
+Galen's house was one he rented from a freedman of the emperor--a wise
+means of retaining favor at the palace.  Landlords having influence were
+careful to protect good tenants.  Furthermore, whoever rented, rather
+than possessed, escaped more easily from persecution.  Galen, like
+Tyanan Apollonius, reduced his private needs, maintaining that
+philosophy went hand in hand with medicine, but wealth with neither.
+
+It was a pleasant little house, not far away from Cornificia's, within a
+precinct that was rebuilt after all that part of Rome burned under
+Nero's fascinated gaze.  The street was crescent-shaped, not often
+crowded, though a score of passages like wheel-spokes led to it;  and to
+the rear of Galen's house was a veritable maze of alleys.  There were
+two gates to the house: one wide, with decorated posts, that faced the
+crescent street, where Galen's oldest slave sat on a stool and blinked
+at passers-by;  the other narrow, leading from a little high-walled
+courtyard at the rear into an alley between stables in which milch-asses
+were kept.  That alley led into another where a dozen midwives had their
+names and claims to excellency painted on the doors--an alley carefully
+to be avoided, because women of that trade, like barbers, vied for
+custom by disseminating gossip.
+
+So Sextus used a passage running parallel to that one, leading between
+workshops where the burial-urn makers' slaves engraved untruthful
+epitaphs in baked clay or inlaid them on the marble tomb-slabs--to be
+gilded presently with gold-leaf (since a gilded lie, though costlier, is
+no worse than the same lie unadorned.)
+
+He drummed a signal with his knuckles on the panel of a narrow door of
+olive-wood, set deep into the wall under a projecting arch.  An
+overleaning tree increased the shadow, and a visitor could wait without
+attracting notice.  A slave nearly as old as Galen presently admitted
+him into a paved yard in which a fish-pond had been built around an
+ancient well.  A few old fruit-trees grew against the wall, and there
+were potted shrubs, but little evidence of gardening, most of Galen's
+slaves being too old for that kind of work.  There were a dozen of them
+loafing in the yard;  some were so fat that they wheezed, and some so
+thin with age that they resembled skeletons.  There was a rumor that the
+fatness and the thinness were accounted for by Galen's fondness for
+experiments.  Old Galen had a hundred jealous rivals and they even said
+he fed the dead slaves to the fish;  but it was Roman custom to give no
+man credit for humaneness if an unclean accusation could be made to
+stick.
+
+Another fat old slave led Sextus to a porch behind the house and through
+that to a library extremely bare of furniture but lined with shelves on
+which rolled manuscripts were stacked in tagged and numbered order;
+they were dusty, as if Galen used them very little nowadays.  There were
+two doors in addition to the one that opened on the porch;  the old
+slave pointed to the smaller one and Sextus, stooping and turning
+sidewise because of the narrowness between the posts, went down a step
+and entered without knocking.
+
+For a moment he could not see Galen, there was such confusion of shadow
+and light.  High shelves around the walls of a long, shed-like room were
+crowded with retorts and phials.  An enormous, dusty human skeleton,
+articulated on concealed wire, moved as if annoyed by the intrusion.
+There were many kinds of skulls of animals and men on brackets fastened
+to the wall, and there were jars containing dead things soaked in
+spirit.  Some of the jars were enormous, having once held olive oil.  On
+a table down the midst were instruments, a scale for weighing chemicals,
+some measures and a charcoal furnace with a blow-pipe;  and across the
+whole of one end of the room was a system of wooden pigeon-holes,
+stacked with chemicals and herbs, for the most part wrapped in
+parchment.
+
+Sunlight streaming through narrow windows amid dust of drugs and spices
+made a moving mystery;  the room seemed under water. Galen, stooping
+over a crucible with an unrolled parchment on the table within reach,
+was not distinguishable until he moved;  when he ceased moving he faded
+out again, and Sextus had to go and stand where he could touch him, to
+believe that he was really there.
+
+"You told me you had ceased experiments."
+
+"I lied.  The universe is an experiment," said Galen.  "Such gods as
+there are perhaps are looking to evolve a decent man, or possibly a
+woman, from the mess we see around us.  Let us hope they fail."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"There appears to be hope in failure.  Should the gods fail, they will
+still be gods and go on trying.  If they ever made a decent man or woman
+all the rest of us would turn on their creation and destroy it.  Then
+the gods would turn into devils and destroy us."
+
+"What has happened to you, Galen?  Why the bitter mood?"
+
+"I discover I am like the rest of you--like all Rome.  At my age such a
+discovery makes for bitterness."  For a minute or two Galen went on
+scraping powder from the crucible, then suddenly he looked up at Sextus,
+stepping backward so as to see the young man's face more clearly in a
+shaft of sunlight.
+
+"Did you send that Christian into the tunnel to kill Commodus?" he
+asked.
+
+"I?  You know me better than that, Galen!  When the time comes to slay
+Commodus--but is Commodus dead?  Speak, don't stand there looking at me!
+Speak, man!"
+
+Galen appeared satisfied.
+
+"No, not Commodus.  The blow miscarried.  Somebody slew Nasor.  A
+mistake.  A coward's blow.  If you had been responsible--"
+
+"When--if--I slay, it shall be openly with my own hand," said Sextus.
+"Not I alone, but Rome herself must vomit out that monster.  Why are you
+vexed?"
+
+"That wanton blow that missed its mark has stripped some friends of mine
+too naked.  It has also stripped me and revealed me to myself.  Last
+night I saw a falling star--a meteor that blazed out of the night and
+vanished."
+
+"I, too," said Sextus.  "All Rome saw it.  The cheap sorcerers are doing
+a fine trade.  They declare it portends evil."
+
+"Evil--but for whom?"  Old Galen poured the powder he had scraped into a
+dish and blinked at him.  "Affiliations in the realm of substance are
+confined to like ingredients.  That law is universal.  Like seeks like,
+begetting its own like.  As for instance, sickness flows in channels of
+unwholesomeness, like water seeping through a marsh.  Evil?  What is
+evil but the likeness of a deed--its echo--its result--its aftermath?
+You see this powder?  Marcia has ordered me to poison Commodus!  What
+kind of aftermath should that deed have?"
+
+Sextus stared at him astonished.  Galen went on mixing.
+
+"Colorless it must be--flavorless--without smell--indetectible. These
+saviors of Rome prepare too much to save themselves!  And I take trouble
+to save myself.  Why?"
+
+He stopped and blinked again at Sextus, waiting for an answer.
+
+"You are worth preserving, Galen."
+
+"I dispute that.  I am sentimental, which is idiocy in a man of my age.
+But I will not kill him who is superior to any man in Rome."
+
+"Idiocy?  You?  And you admire that monster?"
+
+"As a monster, yes.  He is at least wholehearted.  As a monster he lacks
+neither strength of will nor sinew nor good looks;  he is magnificent;
+he has the fear, the frenzy and the resolution of a splendid animal.  We
+have only cowardice, the unenthusiasm and the indecision of base men.
+If we had the virtue of Commodus, no Commodus could ever have ruled Rome
+for half a day. But I am senile.  I am sentimental.  Rather than betray
+Marcia--and Pertinax--who would betray me for their own sakes;  rather
+than submit my own old carcass to the slave whom Marcia would send to
+kill me, I am doing what you see."
+
+"Poison for Commodus?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not for yourself, Galen?"
+
+"No."
+
+"For whom then?"
+
+"For Pertinax."
+
+Sextus seized the plate on which the several ingredients were being
+mixed.
+
+"Put that down," said Galen.  "I will poison part of him--the mean
+part."
+
+"Speak in plain words, Galen!"
+
+"I will slay his indecision.  He and Marcia propose;  that I shall kill
+their monster.  I shall mix a draught for Marcia to take to him--in case
+this, and in case that, and perhaps.  In plain words, Commodus has sent
+for Livius and none knows how much Livius has told.  Their monster
+writes and scratches out and rewrites long proscription lists, and
+Marcia trembles for her Christians.  For herself she does not tremble.
+She has ten times Pertinax' ability to rule.  If Marcia were a man she
+should be emperor!  Our Pertinax is hesitating between inertia and doubt
+and dread of Cornificia's ambition for him;  between admiration of his
+own wife and contempt for her;  between the subtleties of auguries and
+common sense;  between trust and mistrust of us all, including Marcia
+and you and me;  between the easy dignity of being governor of Rome and
+the uneasy palace--slavery of being Caesar;  between doubt of his own
+ability to rule and the will to restore the republic."
+
+"We all know Pertinax," said Sextus.  "He is diffident, that is all.  He
+is modest.  Once he has made his decision--"
+
+Galen interrupted him
+
+"Then let us pray the gods to make the rest of us immodest!  The
+decision that he makes is this:  If Commodus has heard of the
+conspiracy;  if Commodus intends to kill him, he will then allow
+somebody else to kill Commodus!  He will permit me, who am a killer only
+by professional mistake and not by intention, to be made to kill my
+former pupil with a poisoned drink!  You understand, not even then will
+Pertinax take resolution by the throat and do his own work."
+
+"So Pertinax shall drink this?"
+
+"It is meant that Commodus shall drink it.  That is, unless Commodus
+emerges from his sulks too soon and butchers all of us--as we deserve!"
+
+"Have done with riddles, Galen!  How will that affect Pertinax, except
+to make him emperor?"
+
+"Nothing will make him emperor unless he makes himself," said Galen.
+"You will know tonight.  We lack a hero, Sextus.  All conspirators
+resemble rats that gnaw and run, until one rat at last discovers himself
+Caesar of the herd by accident.  Caius Julius Caesar was a hero.  He was
+one mind bold and above and aloof.  He saw.  He considered.  He took.
+His murderers were all conspirators, who ran like rats and turned on one
+another.  So are we!  Can you imagine Caius Julius Caesar threatening an
+old philosopher like me with death unless he mixed the poison for a
+woman to take to his enemy's bedside?  Can you imagine the great Julius
+hesitating to destroy a friend or spare an enemy?"
+
+"Do you mean, they strike tonight, and haven't warned me?"
+
+"I have warned you."
+
+"Marcia has been prepared these many days to kill me if I meant to
+strike," said Sextus.  "I can understand that;  it is no more than a
+woman's method to protect her bully.  She accuses and defends him, fears
+and loves him, hates him and hates more the man who sets her free.  But
+Pertinax--did he not bid you warn me?"
+
+"No," said Galen.  "Are you looking for nobility?  I tell you there is
+nothing noble in conspiracies.  Pertinax and Marcia have used you.  They
+will try to use me.  They will blame me.  They will certainly blame you.
+I advise you to run to your friends in the Aventine Hills.  Thence
+hasten out of Italy.  If Pertinax should fail and Commodus survives this
+night--"
+
+"No, Galen.  He must not fail!  Rome needs Pertinax.  That poison--
+phaugh!  Is no sword left in Rome?  Has Pertinax no iron in him?  Better
+one of Marcia's long pins than that unmanly stuff.  Where is Narcissus?"
+
+"I don't know," said Galen.  "Narcissus is another who will do well to
+protect himself.  Commodus is well disposed toward him. Commodus might
+send for him--as he will surely send for me if belly-burning sets in.
+He and I would make a good pair to be blamed for murdering an emperor."
+
+"You run!" urged Sextus.  "Go now!  Go to my camp in the Aventines.  You
+will find Norbanus and two freedmen waiting near the Porta Capena;  they
+are wearing farmers' clothes and look as if they came from Sicily.  They
+know you.  Say I bade them take you into hiding."
+
+Galen smiled at him.  "And you?" he asked.
+
+"Narcissus shall smuggle me into the palace.  It is I who will slay
+Commodus, lest Pertinax should stain his hands.  If they prefer to turn
+on me, what matter?  Pertinax, if he is to be Caesar, will do better not
+to mount the throne all bloody.  Let him blame me and then execute me.
+Rome will reap the benefit. Marcia has the praetorian guard well under
+control, what with her bribes and all the license she has begged for
+them.  Let Marcia proclaim that Pertinax is Caesar, the praetorian guard
+will follow suit, and the senate will confirm it so soon after daybreak
+that the citizens will find themselves obeying a new Caesar before they
+know the old one is dead!  Then let Pertinax make new laws and restore
+the ancient liberties.  I will die happy."
+
+"O youth--insolence of youth!" said Galen, smiling.  He resumed his
+mixing of the powders, adding new ingredients.  "I was young once--young
+and insolent.  I dared to try to tutor Commodus!  But never in my long
+life was I insolent enough to claim all virtue for myself and bid my
+elders go and hide!  You think you will slay Commodus?  I doubt it."
+
+"How so?"
+
+Sextus was annoyed.  The youth in him resented that his altruism should
+be mocked.
+
+"Pertinax should do it," Galen answered.  "If Rome needed no more than
+philosophy and grammar, better make me Caesar!  I was mixing my
+philosophy with surgery and medicine while Pertinax was sucking at his
+mother's breast in a Ligurian hut. Rome, my son, is sick of too much
+mixed philosophy.  She needs a man of iron--a riser to occasion--a
+cutter of Gordian knots, precisely as a sick man needs a surgeon.  The
+senate will vote, as you say, at the praetorian guard's dictation.  You
+have been clever, my Sextus, with your stirring of faction against
+faction.  They are mean men, all so full of mutual suspicion as to heave
+a huge sigh when they know that Pertinax is Caesar, knowing he will
+overlook their plotting and rule without bloodshed if that can be done.
+But it can't be!  Unless Pertinax is man enough to strike the blow that
+shall restore the ancient liberties, then he is better dead before he
+tries to play the savior!  We have a tyrant now.  Shall we exchange him
+for a weak-kneed theorist?"
+
+"Are you ready to die, Galen?"
+
+"Why not?  Are you the only Roman?  I am not so old I have no virtue
+left.  A little wisdom comes with old age, Sextus.  It is better to live
+for one's country than to die for it, but since no way has been invented
+of avoiding death, it is wiser to die usefully than like a sandal thrown
+on to the rubbish-heap because the fashion changes."
+
+"I wish you would speak plainly, Galen.  I have told you all my secrets.
+You have seen me risk my life a thousand times in the midst of Commodus'
+informers, coming and going, interviewing this and that one, urging
+here, restraining there, denying myself even hope of personal reward.
+You know I have been whole-hearted in the cause of Pertinax.  Is it
+right, in a crisis, to put me off with subtleties?"
+
+"Life is subtle.  So is virtue.  So is this stuff," Galen answered,
+poking at the mixture with a bronze spoon.  "Every man must choose his
+own way in a crisis.  Some one's star has fallen. Commodus'?  I think
+not.  That star blazed out of obscurity, and Commodus is not obscure.
+Mine?  I am unimportant;  I shall make no splendor in the heavens when
+my hour comes.  Marcia's?  Is she obscure?  Yours?  You are like me, not
+born to the purple;  when a sparrow dies, however diligently he has
+labored in the dirt, no meteors announce his fall.  No, not Maternus,
+the outlaw, to say nothing of Sextus, the legally dead man, can command
+such notice from the sky.  That meteor was some one's who shall blaze
+into fame and then die."
+
+"Dark words, Galen!"
+
+"Dark deeds!" the old man answered.  "And a path to be chosen in
+darkness!  Shall I poison the man whom I taught as a boy?  Shall I
+refuse, and be drowned in the sewer by Marcia's slaves?  Shall I betray
+my friends to save my own old carcass?  Shall I run away and hide, at my
+age, and live hounded by my own thoughts, fearful of my shadow, eating
+charity from peasants?  I can easily say no to all those things.  What
+then?  It is not what a man does not, but what he does that makes him or
+unmakes him.  There is nothing left but subtlety, my Sextus.  What will
+you do?  Go and do it now.  Tomorrow may be too late."
+
+Sextus shrugged his shoulders, baffled and irritated.  He had always
+looked to Galen for advice in a predicament.  It was Galen, in fact, who
+had kept him from playing much more than the part of a spy-listening,
+talking, suggesting, but forever doing nothing violent.
+
+"You know as well as I do, there is nothing ready," he retorted. "Long
+ago I could have had a thousand armed men waiting for a moment such as
+this to rally behind Pertinax.  But I listened to you--"
+
+"And are accordingly alive, not crucified!" said Galen.  "The praetorian
+guard is well able to slaughter any thousand men, to uphold Commodus or
+to put Pertinax in the place of Commodus. Your thousand men would only
+decorate a thousand gibbets, whether Pertinax should win or lose.  If he
+should win, and become Caesar, he would have to make them an example of
+his love of law and order, proving his impartiality by blaming them for
+what he never invited them to do.  For mark this:  Pertinax has never
+named himself as Commodus' successor.  I warn you:  there is far less
+safety for his friends than for his enemies, unless he, with his own
+hand, strikes the blow that makes him emperor."
+
+"If Marcia should do it--?"
+
+"That would be the end of Marcia."
+
+"If I should do it?"
+
+"That would be the end of you, my Sextus."
+
+"Let us say farewell, then, Galen!  This right hand shall do it. It will
+save my friends.  It will provide a culprit on whom Pertinax may lay the
+blame.  He will ascend the throne unguilty of his predecessor's blood--"
+
+"And you?" asked Galen.
+
+"I will take my own life.  I will gladly die when I have ridded Rome of
+Commodus."
+
+He paused, awaiting a reply, but Galen appeared almost rudely
+unconcerned.
+
+"You will not say farewell?"
+
+"It is too soon," Galen answered, folding up his powder in a sheet of
+parchment, tying it, at great pains to arrange the package neatly.
+
+"Will you not wish me success?"
+
+"That is something, my Sextus, that I have no powders for.  I have
+occasionally cured men.  I can set most kinds of fractures with
+considerable skill, old though I am.  And I can divert a man's attention
+sometimes, so that he lets nature heal him of mysterious diseases.  But
+success is something you have already wished for and have already made
+or unmade.  What you did, my Sextus, is the scaffolding of what you do
+now;  this, in turn, of what you will do next.  I gave you my advice.  I
+bade you run away--in which case I would bid you farewell, but not
+otherwise."
+
+"I will not run."
+
+"I heard you."
+
+"And you said you are sentimental, Galen!"
+
+"I have proved it to you.  If I were not, I myself would run!"
+
+Galen led the way out of the room into the hall where the mosaic floor
+and plastered walls presented colored temple scenes--priests burning
+incense at the shrine of Aesculapius, the sick and maimed arriving and
+the cured departing, giving praise.
+
+"There will be no hero left in Rome when they have slain our Roman
+Hercules," said Galen.  "He has been a triton in a pond of minnows.  You
+and I and all the other little men may not regret him afterward, since
+heroes, and particularly mad ones, are not madly loved.  But we will not
+enjoy the rivalry of minnows."
+
+He led Sextus to the porch and stood there for a minute holding to his
+arm.
+
+"There will be no rivals who will dare to raise their heads," said
+Sextus, "once our Pertinax has made his bid for power."
+
+"But he will not," Galen answered.  "He will hesitate and let others do
+the bidding.  Too many scruples!  He who would govern an empire might
+better have fetters on feet and hands!  Now go. But go not to the palace
+if you hope to see a heroism--or tomorrow's dawn!"
+
+
+
+
+XII.-LONG LIVE CAESAR!
+
+
+
+That night it rained.  The wind blew yelling squalls along the streets.
+At intervals the din of hail on cobble-stones and roofs became a
+stinging sea of sound.  The wavering oil lanterns died out one by one
+and left the streets in darkness in which now and then a slave-borne
+litter labored like a boat caught spreading too much sail.  The
+overloaded sewers backed up and made pools of foulness, difficult to
+ford.  Along the Tiber banks there was panic where the river-boats were
+plunging and breaking adrift on the rising flood and miserable, drenched
+slaves labored with the bales of merchandize, hauling the threatened
+stuff to higher ground.
+
+But the noisiest, dismalest place was the palace, the heart of all Rome,
+where the rain and hail dinned down on marble.  There was havoc in the
+clumps of ornamental trees--crashing of pots blown down from balconies--
+thunder of rent awnings and the splashing of countless cataracts where
+overloaded gutters spilled their surplus on mosaic pavement fifty or a
+hundred feet below. No light showed, saving at the guard-house by the
+main gate, where a group of sentries shrugged themselves against the
+wall--ill-tempered, shivering, alert.  However mutinous a Roman army, or
+a legion, or a guard might be, its individuals were loyal to the routine
+work of military duty.
+
+A decurion stepped out beneath a splashing arch, the lamplight gleaming
+on his wetted bronze and crimson.
+
+"Narcissus?  Yes, I recognize you.  Who is this?" Narcissus and Sextus
+were shrouded in loose, hooded cloaks of raw wool, under which they
+hugged a change of footgear.  Sextus had his face well covered.
+Narcissus pushed him forward under the guard-room arch, out of the rain.
+
+"This is a man from Antioch, whom Caesar told me to present to him," he
+said.  "I know him well.  His names is Marius."
+
+"I have no orders to admit a man of that name." Narcissus waxed
+confidential.
+
+"Do you wish to get both of us into trouble?" he asked.  "You know
+Caesar's way.  He said bring him and forgot, I suppose, to tell his
+secretary to write the order for admission.  Tonight he will remember my
+speaking to him about this expert with a javelin, and if I have to tell
+him--"
+
+"Speak with the centurion."
+
+The decurion beckoned them into the guard-house, where a fire burned in
+a bronze tripod, casting a warm glow on walls hung with shields and
+weapons.  A centurion, munching oily seed and wiping his mouth with the
+back of his hand, came out of an inner office. He was not the type that
+had made Roman arms invincible.  He lacked the self-reliant dignity of
+an old campaigner, substituting for it self-assertiveness and flashy
+manners.  He was annoyed because he could not get the seed out of his
+mouth with his finger in time to look aristocratic.
+
+"What now, Narcissus?  By Bacchus, no!  No irregularities tonight!  The
+very gods themselves are imitating Caesar's ill-humor!  Who is it you
+have brought?"
+
+Narcissus beckoned the centurion toward the corner, between fire and
+wall, where he could whisper without risk of being overheard.
+
+"Marcia told me to bring this man tonight in hope of making Caesar
+change his mood.  He is a javelin-thrower--an expert."
+
+"Has he a javelin under the cloak?" the centurion asked suspiciously.
+
+"He is unarmed, of course.  Do you take us for madmen?"
+
+"All Rome is mad tonight," said the centurion, "or I wouldn't be arguing
+with a gladiator!  Tell me what you know.  A sentry said you saw the
+death of Pavonius Nasor.  All the sentries who were in the tunnel at the
+time are under lock and key, and I expect to be ordered to have the poor
+devils killed to silence them.  And now Bultius Livius--have you heard
+about it?"
+
+"I have heard Caesar sent for him."
+
+"Well, if Caesar has sent for this friend of yours, he had better first
+made sacrifices to his gods and pray for something better than befell
+poor Livius!  Yourself too!  They say Livius is being racked--doubtless
+to make him tell more than he knows.  I smell panic in the air.  With
+all these palace slaves coming and going you can't check rumor and I'll
+wager there is already an exodus from Rome.  Gods!  What a night for
+travel!  Morning will see the country roads all choked with the
+conveyances of bogged up senators!  Let us pray this friend of yours may
+soften Caesar's mood.  Where is his admission paper?"
+
+"As I told the decurion, I have none."
+
+"That settles it then;  he can't enter.  No risks--not when I know the
+mood our Commodus is in!  The commander might take the responsibility,
+but not I."
+
+"Where is he?" asked Narcissus.
+
+"Where any lucky fellow is on such a night--in bed.  I wouldn't dare to
+send for him for less than riots, mutiny and all Rome burning!  Let your
+man wait here.  Go you into the palace and get a written permit for
+him."
+
+But nothing was more probable than that such a permit would be
+unobtainable.
+
+Sextus stepped into the firelight, pulling back the hood to let the
+centurion see his face.
+
+"By Mars' red plume!  Are you the man they call Maternus?"
+
+Sextus retorted with a challenge:
+
+"Now will you send for your commander?  He knows me well."
+
+"Dioscuri!  Doubtless!  Probably you robbed him of his purse!  By
+Romulus and Remus, what is happening to Rome?  That falling star last
+night portended, did it, that a highwayman should dare to try to enter
+Caesar's palace!  Ho there, decurion!  Bring four men!"
+
+The decurion clanked in.  His men surrounded Sextus at a gesture.
+
+"I ought to put you both in cells," said the centurion.  "But you shall
+have a chance to justify yourself, Narcissus.  Go on in. Bring Caesar's
+written order to release this man Maternus--if you can!"
+
+Narcissus, like all gladiators, had been trained in facial control lest
+an antagonist should be forewarned by his expression.  Nevertheless, he
+was hard put to it to hide the fear that seized him.  He supposed not
+even Marcia would dare openly to come to Sextus' rescue.
+
+"That man is my only friend," he said.  "Let me have word with him
+first."
+
+"Not one word!"
+
+The centurion made a gesture with his head.  The guards took Sextus by
+the arms and marched him out into the night, he knowing better than to
+waste energy or arouse anger by resisting.
+
+"Then I will go to the commander!  I go straight to him," Narcissus
+stammered.  "Idiot!  Don't you know that Marcia protects Maternus?
+Otherwise, how should an outlaw whose face is so well known that you
+recognized him instantly--how should he dare to approach the palace?"
+
+The centurion touched his forehead.
+
+"Mad, I daresay!  Go on in.  Get Marcia's protection for him. Bring me
+her command in writing!  Wait, though--let me look at you."
+
+He made Narcissus throw his heavy cloak off, clean his legs and change
+into his other foot-gear.  Then he examined his costume.
+
+"Even on a night like this they'd punish me for letting a man pass who
+wasn't dressed right.  Let me see, you're not free yet; you don't have
+to wear a toga.  I spend half my days teaching clodhoppers how to fold
+hired togas properly behind the neck. It's the only way you can tell a
+slave from a citizen these days! The praetorian guard ought to be
+recruited from the tailors' shops!  Lace up your sandal properly.  Now--
+any weapons underneath that tunic?"
+
+Sullenly Narcissus held his arms up and submitted to be searched. He
+usually came and went unchallenged, being known as one of Caesar's
+favorites, but the centurion's suspicions were aroused. They were almost
+confirmed a moment later.  The decurion returned and laid a long, lean
+dagger on the table.
+
+"Taken from the prisoner," he reported.  "It was hidden beneath his
+tunic.  He looks desperate enough to kill himself, so I left two men to
+keep an eye on him."
+
+The centurion scratched his chin again, his mouth half-open.
+
+"Whom do you propose to visit in the palace?" he demanded.
+
+"Marcia," said Narcissus.
+
+The centurion turned to the decurion.
+
+"Go you with him.  Hand him over to the hall-attendants.  Bid them pass
+him from hand to hand into Marcia's presence.  Don't return until you
+have word he has reached her."
+
+To all intents and purposes a prisoner, Narcissus was marched along the
+mosaic pavement of a bronze-roofed colonnade, whose marble columns
+flanked the approach to the palace steps. Drenched guards, posted near
+the eaves where water splashed on them clanged their shields in darkness
+as the decurion passed; there was not a square yard of the palace
+grounds unwatched.
+
+There was a halt beside the little marble pavilion near the palace
+steps, where the decurion turned Narcissus over to an attendant in
+palace uniform, but no comment;  the palace was too used to seeing
+favorites of one day in disgrace the next.
+
+Within the palace there was draughtily lighted gloom, a sensation of
+dread and mysterious restlessness.  The bronze doors leading to the
+emperor's apartments were shut and guards posted outside them who
+demanded extremely definite reasons for admitting any one;  even when
+the centurion's message was delivered some one had to be sent in first
+to find out whether Marcia was willing, and for nearly half an hour
+Narcissus waited, biting his lip with impatience.
+
+When he was sent for at last, and accompanied in, he found Marcia,
+Pertinax and Galen seated unattended in the gorgeous, quiet anteroom
+next to the emperor's bedchamber.  The outer storm was hardly audible
+through the window-shutters, but there was an atmosphere of impending
+climax, like the hush and rumble that precedes eruptions.
+
+Marcia nodded and dismissed the attendant who had brought Narcissus.
+There was a strained look about her eyes, a tightening at the corners of
+the mouth.  Her voice was almost hoarse:
+
+"What is it?  You bring bad news, Narcissus!  What has happened?"
+
+"Sextus has been arrested by the main gate guard!"
+
+Galen came out of a reverie.  Pertinax bit at his nails and looked
+startled;  worry had made him look as old as Galen, but his shoulders
+were erect and he was very splendid in his jeweled full dress.  None
+spoke;  they waited on Marcia, who turned the news over in her mind a
+minute.
+
+"When?  Why?" she asked at last.
+
+"He proposed I should smuggle him in, that he might be of service to
+you.  He was stormy-minded.  He said Rome may need a determined man
+tonight.  But the centurion of the guard recognized him--knew he is
+Maternus.  He refused to summon the commander.  Sextus is locked in a
+cell, and there is no knowing what the guards may do to him.  They may
+try to make him talk. Please write and order him released."
+
+"Yes, order him released," said Pertinax.
+
+But Marcia's strained lips flickered with the vestige of a smile.
+
+"A determined man!" she said, her eyes on Pertinax.  "By morning a
+determined man might give his own commands.  Sextus is safe where he is.
+Let him stay there until you have power to release him!  Go and wait in
+the outer room, Narcissus!"
+
+Narcissus had no alternative.  Though he could sense the climax with the
+marrow of his bones, he did not dare to disobey.  He might have rushed
+into the emperor's bedroom to denounce the whole conspiracy and offer
+himself as bodyguard in the emergency. That might have won Commodus'
+gratitude;  it might have opened up a way for liberating Sextus.  But
+there was irresolution in the air.  And besides, he knew that Sextus
+would reckon it a treason to himself to be made beholden for his life to
+Commodus, nor would he forgive betrayal of his friends, Pertinax, and
+Marcia and Galen.
+
+So Narcissus, who cared only for Sextus, reckoning no other man on earth
+his friend, went and sat beyond the curtains in the smaller, outer room,
+straining his ears to catch the conversation and wondering what tragedy
+the gods might have in store.  As gladiator his philosophy was mixed of
+fatalism, cynical irreverence, a semi-military instinct of obedience,
+short-sightedness and self-will.  He reckoned Marcia no better than
+himself because she, too, was born in slavery--and Pertinax not vastly
+better than himself because he was a charcoal-burner's son.  But it did
+not enter his head just then that he might be capable of making history.
+
+Marcia well understood him.  Knowing that he could not escape to confer
+with the slaves in the corridor, because the door leading to the
+corridor from the smaller anteroom was locked, she was at no pains to
+prevent his overhearing anything.  He could be dealt with either way, at
+her convenience;  a reward might seal his lips, or she could have him
+killed the instant that his usefulness was ended, which was possibly not
+yet.
+
+"Sextus," she said, "must be dealt with.  Pertinax, you are the one who
+should attend to it.  As governor of Rome you can--"
+
+"He is thoroughly faithful," said Pertinax.  "He has been very useful to
+us."
+
+"Yes," said Marcia, "but usefulness has limits.  Time comes when wine
+jars need resealing, else the wine spills.  Galen, go in and see the
+emperor."
+
+Galen shook his head.
+
+"He is a sick man," said Marcia.  "I think he has a fever."
+
+Galen shook his head again.
+
+"I will not have it said I poisoned him."
+
+"Nonsense!  Who knows that you mixed any poison?"
+
+"Sextus, for one," Galen answered.
+
+"Dea dia!  There you are!" said Marcia.  "I tell you, Pertinax, your
+Sextus may prove to be another Livius!  He has been as ubiquitous as the
+plague.  He knows everything.  What if he should turn around and secure
+himself and his estates by telling Commodus all he knows?  It was you
+who trusted Livius.  Do you never learn by your mistakes?"
+
+"We don't know yet what Livius has told," said Pertinax.  "If he had
+been tortured--but he was not.  Commodus slew him with his own hand.  I
+know that is true;  it was told me by the steward of the bedchamber, who
+saw it, and who helped to dispose of the body.  Commodus swore that such
+a creeping spy as Livius, who could be true to nobody but scribbled,
+scribbled, scribbled in a journal all the scandal he could learn in
+order to betray anybody when it suited him, was unfit to live.  I take
+that for a sign that Commodus has had a change of heart.  It was a manly
+thing to slay that wretch."
+
+"He will have a change of governors of Rome before the day dawns!"
+Marcia retorted.  "If it weren't that he might change his mistress at
+the same time--"
+
+"You would betray me--eh?"  Pertinax smiled at her tolerantly.
+
+"No," said Marcia, "I would let you have your own way and be executed!
+You deserve it, Pertinax."  Pertinax stood up and paced the floor with
+hands behind him.
+
+"I will have my own way.  I will have it, Marcia!" he said, calmly,
+coming to a stand in front of her.  "He who plots against his emperor
+may meet the like fate!  If Commodus has no designs against me, then I
+harbor none against him.  I am not sure I am fitted to be Caesar.  I
+have none to rally to me, to rely on, except the praetorian guard, which
+is a two-horned weapon;  they could turn on me as easily and put a man
+of their own choosing on the throne.  And furthermore, I don't wish to
+be Caesar. Glabrio, for instance, is a better man than I am for the
+task.  I will only consent to your desperate course, for the sake of
+Rome, if you can prove to me that Commodus designs a wholesale massacre.
+And even so, if your name and Galen's and mine are not on his
+proscription list--if he only intends, that is, to punish Christians and
+weaken the faction of that Carthaginian Severus, I will observe my oath
+of loyalty.  I will counsel moderation but--"
+
+"You are less than half a man without your mistress!" Marcia exploded.
+"Don't stand trying to impress me with your dignity. I don't believe in
+it!  I will send for Cornificia."
+
+"No, no!" Pertinax showed instant resolution.  "Cornificia shall not be
+dragged in.  The responsibility is yours and mine.  Let us not lessen
+our dignity by involving an innocent woman."
+
+For a moment that made Marcia breathless.  She was staggered by his
+innocence, not his assertion of Cornificia's--bemused by the man's
+ability to believe what he chose to believe, as if Cornificia had not
+been the very first who plotted to make him Caesar.  Cornificia more
+than any one had contrived to suggest to the praetorian guard that their
+interest might best be served some day by befriending Pertinax;  she
+more than any one had disarmed Commodus' suspicion by complaining to him
+about Pertinax' lack of self-assertiveness, which had become Commodus'
+chief reason for not mistrusting him.  By pretending to report to
+Commodus the private doings of Pertinax and a number of other important
+people, Cornificia had undermined Commodus' faith in his secret
+informers who might else have been dangerous.
+
+"Your Cornificia," Marcia began then changed her mind. Disillusionment
+would do no good.  She must play on the man's illusion that he was the
+master of his own will.  "Very well," she went on,  "Yours be the
+decision!  No woman can decide such issues.  We are all in your hands--
+Cornificia and Galen--all of us--aye, and Rome, too--and even Sextus and
+his friends.  But you will never have another such opportunity.  It is
+tonight or never, Pertinax!"
+
+He winced.  He was about to speak, but something interrupted him. The
+great door carved with cupids leading to the emperor's bedchamber opened
+inch by inch and Telamonion came out, closing it softly behind him.
+
+"Caesar sleeps," said the child, "and the wind blew out the lamp. He was
+very cross.  It is dark.  It is cold and lonely in there."
+
+In his hand he held a sheet of parchment, covered with writing and
+creased from his attempts to make a parchment helmet, "Show me," he
+said, holding out the sheet to Marcia.
+
+She took him on her knee and began reading what was written, putting him
+down when he tugged at the parchment to make her show him how to fold
+it. She found him another sheet to play with and told him to take it to
+Pertinax who was a soldier and knew more about helmets.  Then she went
+on reading, clutching at the sheet so tightly that her nails blanched
+white under the dye.
+
+"Pertinax!" she said, shaking the parchment, speaking in a strained
+voice, "this is his final list!  He has copied the names from his
+tablets.  Whose name do you guess comes first?"
+
+Pertinax was playing with Telamonion and did not look at her.
+
+"Severus!" he answered, morbid jealousy, amounting to obsession,
+stirring that cynical hope in him.
+
+"Severus isn't mentioned.  The first six names are in this order: Galen,
+Marcia, Cornificia, Pertinax, Narcissus, Sextus alias Maternus.  Do you
+realize what that means?  It is now or never! Why has he put Galen
+first, I wonder?"
+
+Galen did not appear startled.  His interest was philosophical--
+impersonal.
+
+"I should be first.  I am guiltiest.  I taught him in his youth," he
+remarked, smiling thinly.  "I taught him how to loose the beast that
+lives in him, not intending that, of course, but it is what we do that
+counts.  I should come first!  The state would have been better for the
+death of many a man whom I cured;  but I did not cure Commodus, I
+revealed him to himself, and he fell in love with himself and--"
+
+"Now will you poison him?" said Marcia.
+
+"No," said Galen.  "Let him kill me.  It is better."
+
+"Gods!  Has Rome no iron left?  You, Pertinax!" said Marcia, "Go in and
+kill him!"
+
+Pertinax stood up and stared at her.  The child Telamonion pressed close
+to him holding his righthand, gazing at Marcia.
+
+"Telamonion, go in and play with Narcissus," said Marcia.  She pointed
+at the curtains and the child obeyed.
+
+"Go in and kill him, Pertinax!"  Marcia shook the list of names, then
+stood still suddenly, like a woman frozen, ash-white under the carmine
+on her cheeks.
+
+There came a voice from the emperor's bedroom, more like the roar of an
+angry beast than human speech:
+
+"Marcia!  Do you hear me, Marcia?  By all Olympus--Marcia!"
+
+She opened the door.  The inner room was in darkness.  There came a gust
+of chill wet wind that made all the curtains flutter and there was a
+comfortless noise of cataracts of rain downpouring from the over-loaded
+gutters on to marble balconies.  Then the emperor's voice again:
+
+"Is that you, Marcia?  You leave your Commodus to die of thirst! I
+parch--I have a fever--bring my wine-cup!"
+
+"At once, Commodus."
+
+She glanced at the golden cup on an onyx table.  On a stand beside it
+was an unpierced wine jar set in an enormous bowl of snow.  She looked
+at Pertinax--and shrugged her shoulders, possibly because the wind blew
+through the opened door.  She glanced at Galen.
+
+"If you have a fever, shouldn't I bring Galen?"
+
+"No!" roared Commodus.  "The man might poison me!  Bring me the cup, and
+you fill it yourself!  Make haste before I die of thirst!  Then bring me
+another lamp and dose the shutters!  No slaves--I can't bear the sight
+of them!"
+
+"Instantly, Commodus.  I am coming with it now.  Only wait while I
+pierce the amphora."
+
+She closed the door and looked swiftly once again at Pertinax. He
+frowned over the list of names and did not look at her.  She walked
+straight up to Galen.
+
+"Give me!" she demanded, holding out her hand.  He drew a little
+parchment package from his bosom and she clutched it, saying nothing.
+Galen was the one who spoke:
+
+"Responsibility is his who orders.  May the gods see that it falls where
+it belongs."
+
+She took no notice of his speech but stood for a moment untying the
+strings of the package, frowning to herself, then bit the string through
+and, clutching the little package in her fist, took a gilded tool from
+beside the snow-bowl and pierced the seal of the amphora.  Then she put
+the poison in the bottom of the golden cup and poured the wine--with
+difficulty, since the jar was heavy, but Pertinax, who watched intently,
+made no movement to assist.  She stirred the wine with one of her long
+hair-pins.
+
+"Marcia!" roared Commodus.
+
+"I am coming now."
+
+She went into the bedroom, leaving the door not quite closed behind her.
+Pertinax began to stare at Galen critically.  Galen blinked at him.
+Commodus' voice came very distinctly from the inner room:
+
+"Taste first, Marcia!  Olympus!  I can't see you in the dark. Come
+close.  Are your lips wet?  Let me feel them!"
+
+"I drank a whole mouthful, Commodus.  How hot your hand is! Feel--feel
+the cup--you can feel with your finger how much I have tasted.  I broke
+the seal of a fresh jar of Falernian."
+
+"Some of your Christians might have tampered with it!"
+
+"No, no, Commodus.  That jar has been in the cellar since before you
+were born and the seal was intact.  I washed the cup myself."
+
+"Well, taste again.  Sit here on the bed where I can feel your heart-
+beats."
+
+Presently he gave a gasp and belched, as always after he had swallowed a
+whole cupful at one draught.
+
+"Now close the shutters and bolt them on the inside;  there might be
+some of your Christians lurking on the balcony."
+
+"In this storm, Commodus?  And there are guards on duty."
+
+"Close them, I say!  Who trusts the guards!  Did they guard the tunnel?
+I will rid Rome of all Christians tomorrow!  Aye, and of many another
+reptile!  They have robbed me of my fun in the arena--I will find
+another way to interest myself!  Now bring me a fresh lamp in here, and
+set the tablets by the bed."
+
+She came out, shutting the door behind her, then stood listening. She
+did not tremble.  Her wrist was red where Commodus had held it.
+
+"How long?" she whispered, looking at Galen.
+
+"Only a very little time," he answered.  "How much did you drink?"
+
+She put her hand to her stomach, as if pain had stabbed her.
+
+"Drink pure wine," said Galen.  "Swiftly.  Drink a lot of it."
+
+She went to the amphora.  Before she could reach it there came a roar
+like a furious beast's from the bedroom.
+
+"I am poisoned!  Marcia!  Marcia!  My belly burns!  I am on fire inside!
+I faint!  Marcia!--Marcia!"  Then groans and a great creaking of the
+bed.
+
+Marcia--she was trembling now--drank wine, and Pertinax began to pace
+the floor.
+
+"You, Galen, you had better go in to him," said Marcia.
+
+"If I do go, I must heal him," Galen answered.
+
+The groans in the bedroom ceased.  The shouts began again--terrific
+imprecations--curses hurled at Marcia--the struggles of a strong man in
+the throes of cramp--and, at last, the sound of vomiting.
+
+"If he vomits he will not die!" Marcia exclaimed.  Galen nodded. He
+appeared immensely satisfied--expectant.
+
+"Galen, have you--will that poison kill him?" Marcia demanded.
+
+"No," said Galen.  "Pertinax must kill him.  I promised I would do my
+best for Pertinax.  Behold your opportunity!"
+
+Pertinax strode toward him, clutching at a dagger underneath his tunic.
+
+"Kill me if you wish," said Galen, "but if you have any resolution you
+had better do first what you wanted me to do.  And you will need me
+afterward."
+
+Commodus was vomiting and in the pauses roaring like a mad beast. Marcia
+seized Pertinax by the arm.  "I have done my part," she said.  "Now
+nerve yourself!  Go in now and finish it!"
+
+"He may die yet.  Let us wait and see," said Pertinax.
+
+A howl rising to a scream--terror and anger mingled--came from the
+bedroom;  then again the noise of vomiting and the creaking of the bed
+as Commodus writhed in the spasms of cramp.
+
+"He will feel better presently," said Galen.
+
+"If so, you die first!  You have betrayed us all!"  Pertinax shook off
+Marcia and scowled at Galen, raising his right arm as if about to strike
+the old man.  "False to your emperor!  False to us!"
+
+"And quite willing to die, if first I may see you play the man!" said
+Galen, blinking up at him.
+
+"Hush!" exclaimed Marcia.  "Listen!  Gods!  He is up off the bed! He
+will be in here in a minute!  Pertinax!"
+
+Alarm subsided.  They could hear the thud and creak as Commodus threw
+himself back on the bed--then writhing again and groans of agony.
+Between the spasms Commodus began to frame connected sentences:
+
+"Guards!  Your emperor is being murdered!  Rescue your Commodus!"
+
+"He is recovering," said Galen.
+
+"Give me your dagger!" said Marcia and clutched at Pertinax' tunic,
+feeling for it.
+
+But she was not even strong enough to resist the half-contemptuous shrug
+with which Pertinax thrust her away.
+
+"You disgust me.  There is neither dignity nor decency in this," he
+muttered.  "Nothing but evil can come of it."
+
+"Whose was the star that fell?" asked Galen.
+
+There came more noise from the bedroom.  Commodus seemed to be trying to
+get to his feet again.  Marcia ran toward the smaller anteroom and
+dragged the curtains back.
+
+"Narcissus!"
+
+He came out, carrying Telamonion.  The child lay asleep in his arms.
+
+"Go and put that child down.  Now earn your freedom--go in and kill the
+emperor!  He has poisoned himself, and he thinks we did it.  Give him
+your dagger, Pertinax!"
+
+"I am only a slave," Narcissus answered.  "It is not right that a slave
+should kill an emperor."
+
+Marcia seized the gladiator by the shoulders, scanned his face, saw what
+she looked for and bargained for it instantly.
+
+"Your freedom!  Manumission and a hundred thousand sesterces!"
+
+"In writing!" said Narcissus.
+
+"Dog!" growled Pertinax.  "Go in and do as you are told!"
+
+But Narcissus only grinned at him and squared his shoulders.
+
+"Death means little to a gladiator," he remarked.
+
+"Leave him to me!" ordered Marcia.
+
+"Go and sit down at that table, Pertinax.  Take pen and parchment.  Now
+then--what do you want in writing?  Make haste!"
+
+"Freedom--you may keep your money--I shall not wait to receive it.
+Freedom for me and for Sextus and for all of Sextus' friends and
+freedmen.  An order releasing Sextus from the guard-house instantly.
+Permission to leave Rome and Italy by any route we choose."
+
+"Write, Pertinax!" said Marcia.  Narcissus glanced at Galen.
+
+"Galen," he said, "is one of Sextus' friends, so set his name down."
+
+"Never mind me," said Galen.  "They will need me."
+
+Marcia stood over Pertinax, watching him write.  She snatched the
+document and sanded it, then watched him write the order to the guard,
+releasing Sextus.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed.  "You have your price.  Go in and kill him!
+Give him your dagger, Pertinax."
+
+"I hoped for heroism, not expecting it," said Galen.  "I expected
+cunning.  Is it absent, too?  If he should use a dagger--many men have
+heard me say that Caesar has a tendency to apoplexy--"
+
+"Strangle him!" commanded Marcia.
+
+She thrust the palms of her hands against Narcissus' back and pushed him
+toward the bedroom door, now almost at the end of her reserves of self-
+control.  Her mouth trembled.  She was fighting against hysteria.
+
+"Light!  Lamp!  Guards!" roared Commodus, and again the ebony-posted bed
+creaked under him.  Narcissus stepped into the darkened room.  He left
+the door open, to have light to do his work by, but Marcia closed it,
+clinging to the gilded satyr's head that served for knob with both
+hands, her lips drawn tight against her teeth, her whole face tortured
+with anticipation.
+
+"It is better that a gladiator did it," remarked Pertinax, attempting to
+look calm.  "I never killed a man.  As general, and as governor of Rome,
+as consul and proconsul, I have spared whom I might.  Some had to die
+but--my own hands are clean."
+
+There came an awful sound of struggle from the inner room.  A monstrous
+roar was shut off suddenly, half-finished, smothered under bedclothes.
+Then the bed-frame cracked under the strain of Titans fighting--cracked
+--creaked--and utter silence fell.  It lasted several minutes. Then the
+door opened and Narcissus came striding out.
+
+"He was strong," he remarked.  "Look at this."
+
+He bared his arm and showed where Commodus had gripped him;  the lithe
+muscle looked as if it had been gripped in an iron vise. He chafed it,
+wincing with pain.
+
+"Go in and observe that I have taken nothing.  Don't be afraid," he
+added scornfully.  "He fought like the god that he was, but he died--"
+
+"Of apoplexy," Galen interrupted.  "That is to say, of a surging of
+blood to the brain and a cerebral rupture.  It is fortunate you have a
+doctor on the scene who knew of his liability to--"
+
+"We must go and see," said Marcia.  "Come with me, Pertinax. Then we
+must tidy the bed and make haste and summon the officers of the
+praetorian guard.  Let them hear Galen say he died of apoplexy."
+
+She picked up a lamp from the table and Pertinax moved to follow her,
+but Narcissus stepped in his way.
+
+"Ave, Caesar!" he said, throwing up his right hand.
+
+"You may go," said Pertinax.  "Go in silence.  Not a word to a soul in
+the corridors.  Leave Rome.  Leave Italy.  Take Sextus with you."
+
+"You will let him go?" asked Marcia.  "Pertinax, what will become of
+you?  Send to the guard at the gate and command them to seize him!
+Sextus and Narcissus--"
+
+"Have my promise!" he retorted.  "If the fates intend me to be Caesar,
+it shall not be said I slew the men who set me on the throne."
+
+"You are Caesar," she answered.  "How long will you last?  All omens
+favored you--the murder in the tunnel--now this storm, like a veil to
+act behind, and--"
+
+"And last night a falling star!" said Galen.  "Give me parchment. I will
+write the cause of death.  Then let me go too, or else kill me.  I am no
+more use.  This is the second time that I have failed to serve the world
+by tutoring a Caesar.  Commodus the hero, and now you the--"
+
+"Silence!" Marcia commanded.  "Or even Pertinax may rise above his
+scruples!  Write a death certificate at once, and go your way and follow
+Sextus!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Caesar Dies, by Talbot Mundy
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10422 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #10422 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10422)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Caesar Dies, by Talbot Mundy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Caesar Dies
+
+Author: Talbot Mundy
+
+Release Date: December 9, 2003 [EBook #10422]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAESAR DIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jake Jaqua
+
+
+
+
+CAESAR DIES
+
+by Talbot Mundy
+
+
+
+
+I.  IN THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR COMMODUS
+
+
+
+Golden Antioch lay like a jewel at a mountain's throat.  Wide,
+intersecting streets, each nearly four miles long, granite-paved, and
+marble-colonnaded, swarmed with fashionable loiterers.  The gay
+Antiochenes, whom nothing except frequent earthquakes interrupted from
+pursuit of pleasure, were taking the air in chariots, in litters, and on
+foot;  their linen clothes were as riotously picturesque as was the
+fruit displayed in open shop-fronts under the colonnades, or as the
+blossom on the trees in public gardens, which made of the city, as seen
+from the height of the citadel, a mosaic of green and white.
+
+The crowd on the main thoroughfares was aristocratic;  opulence was
+accented by groups of slaves in close attendance on their owners;  but
+the aristocracy was sharply differentiated.  The Romans, frequently less
+wealthy (because those who had made money went to Rome to spend it)--
+frequently less educated and, in general, not less dissolute--despised
+the Antiochenes, although the Romans loved Antioch.  The cosmopolitan
+Antiochenes returned the compliment, regarding Romans as mere duffers in
+depravity, philistines in art, but capable in war and government, and
+consequently to be feared, if not respected.  So there was not much
+mingling of the groups, whose slaves took example from their masters,
+affecting in public a scorn that they did not feel but were careful to
+assert.  The Romans were intensely dignified and wore the toga, pallium
+and tunic;  the Antiochenes affected to think dignity was stupid and its
+trappings (forbidden to them) hideous;  so they carried the contrary
+pose to extremes. Patterning herself on Alexandria, the city had become
+to all intents and purposes the eastern capital of Roman empire.  North,
+south, east and west, the trade-routes intersected, entering the city
+through the ornate gates in crenelated limestone walls. From miles away
+the approaching caravans were overlooked by legionaries brought from
+Gaul and Britain, quartered in the capitol on Mount Silpius at the
+city's southern limit.  The riches of the East, and of Egypt, flowed
+through, leaving their deposit as a river drops its silt;  were ever-
+increasing.  One quarter, walled off, hummed with foreign traders from
+as far away as India, who lodged at the travelers' inns or haunted the
+temples, the wine-shops and the lupanars.  In that quarter, too, there
+were barracks, with compounds and open-fronted booths, where slaves were
+exposed for sale;  and there, also, were the caravanserais within whose
+walls the kneeling camels grumbled and the blossomy spring air grew
+fetid with the reek of dung.  There was a market-place for elephants and
+other oriental beasts.
+
+Each of Antioch's four divisions had its own wall, pierced by arched
+gates.  Those were necessary.  No more turbulent and fickle population
+lived in the known world--not even in Alexandria.  Whenever an
+earthquake shook down blocks of buildings--and that happened nearly as
+frequently as the hysterical racial riots--the Romans rebuilt with a
+view to making communications easier from the citadel, where the great
+temple of Jupiter Capitolinus frowned over the gridironed streets.
+
+Roman officials and the wealthier Macedonian Antiochenes lived on an
+island, formed by a curve of the River Orontes at the northern end
+within the city wall.  The never-neglected problem of administration was
+to keep a clear route along which troops could move from citadel to
+island when the rioting began.
+
+On the island was the palace, glittering with gilt and marble, gay with
+colored awnings, where kings had lived magnificently until Romans saved
+the city from them, substituting a proconsular paternal kind of tyranny
+originating in the Roman patria potestas.  There was not much sentiment
+about it.  Rome became the foster-parent, the possessor of authority.
+There was duty, principally exacted from the governed in the form of
+taxes and obedience;  and there were privileges, mostly reserved for the
+rulers and their parasites, who were much more numerous than anybody
+liked.  Competition made the parasites as discontented as their prey.
+
+But there were definite advantages of Roman rule, which no Antiochene
+denied, although their comic actors and the slaves who sang at private
+entertainments mocked the Romans and invented accusations of injustice
+and extortion that were even more outrageous than the truth.  Not since
+the days when Antioch inherited the luxury and vices of the Greeks and
+Syrians, had pleasure been so organized or its commercial pursuit so
+profitable.  Taxes were collected rigorously.  The demands of Rome,
+increased by the extravagance of Commodus, were merciless. But trade was
+good.  Obedience and flattery were well rewarded. Citizens who yielded
+to extortion and refrained from criticism within hearing of informers
+lived in reasonable expectation of surviving the coming night.
+
+But the informers were ubiquitous and unknown, which was another reason
+why the Romans and Antiochenes refrained from mixing socially more than
+could be helped.  A secret charge of treason, based on nothing more than
+an informer's malice, might set even a Roman citizen outside the pale of
+ordinary law and make him liable to torture.  If convicted, death and
+confiscation followed.  Since the deification of the emperors it had
+become treason even to use a coarse expression near their images or
+statues;  images were on the coins;  statues were in the streets.
+Commodus, to whom all confiscated property accrued, was in ever-
+increasing need of funds to defray the titanic expense of the games that
+he lavished on Rome and the "presents" with which he studiously nursed
+the army's loyalty.  So it was wise to be taciturn;   expedient to
+choose one's friends deliberately; not far removed from madness to be
+seen in company with those whose antecedents might suggest the
+possibility of a political intrigue.  But it was also unwise to woo
+solitude;  a solitary man might perish by the rack and sword for lack of
+witnesses, if charged with some serious offense.
+
+So there were comradeships more loyal the more that treachery stalked
+abroad.  Because seriousness drew attention from the spies, the deepest
+thoughts were masked beneath an air of levity, and merrymaking hid such
+counsels as might come within the vaguely defined boundaries of treason.
+
+Sextus, son of Maximus, rode not alone.  Norbanus rode beside him, and
+behind them Scylax on the famous Arab mare that Sextus had won from
+Artaxes the Persian in a wager on the recent chariot races.  Scylax was
+a slave but no less, for that reason, Sextus' friend.
+
+Norbanus rode a skewbald Cappadocian that kicked out sidewise at
+pedestrians;  so there was opportunity for private conversation, even on
+the road to Daphne of an afternoon in spring, when nearly all of
+fashionable Antioch was beginning to flow in that direction.  Horses,
+litters and chariots, followed by crowds of slaves on foot with the
+provisions for moonlight banquets, poured toward the northern gate, some
+overtaking and passing the three but riding wide of the skewbald
+Cappadocian stallion's heels.
+
+"If Pertinax should really come," said Sextus.
+
+"He will have a girl with him," Norbanus interrupted.  He had an
+annoying way of finishing the sentences that other folk began.
+
+"True.  When he is not campaigning Pertinax finds a woman irresistible."
+
+"And naturally, also, none resists a general in the field!" Norbanus
+added.  "So our handsome Pertinax performs his vows to Aphrodite with a
+constancy that the goddess rewards by forever putting lovely women in
+his way!  Whereas Stoics like you, Sextus, and unfortunates like me, who
+don't know how to amuse a woman, are made notorious by one least lapse
+from our austerity. The handsome, dissolute ones have all the luck.  The
+roisterers at Daphne will invent such scandalous tales of us tonight as
+will pursue us for a lustrum, and yet there isn't a chance in a thousand
+that we shall even enjoy ourselves!"
+
+"Yes.  I wish now we had chosen any other meeting place than Daphne,"
+Sextus answered gloomily.  "What odds?  Had we gone into the desert
+Pertinax would have brought his own last desperate adorer, and a couple
+more to bore us while he makes himself ridiculous.  Strange--that a man
+so firm in war and wise in government should lose his head the moment a
+woman smiles at him."
+
+"He doesn't lose his head--much," Sextus answered.  "But his father was
+a firewood seller in a village in Liguria. That is why he so loves money
+and the latest fashions.  Poverty and rags--austerity inflicted on him
+in his youth--great Jupiter!  If you and I had risen from the charcoal-
+burning to be consul twice and a grammarian and the friend of Marcus
+Aurelius;  if you and I were as handsome as he is, and had experienced a
+triumph after restoring discipline in Britain and conducting two or
+three successful wars;  and if either of us had such a wife as Flavia
+Titiana, I believe we could besmirch ourselves more constantly than
+Pertinax does!  It is not that he delights in women so much as that he
+thinks debauch is aristocratic.  Flavia Titiana is unfaithful to him.
+She is also a patrician and unusually clever. He has never understood
+her, but she is witty, so he thinks her wonderful and tries to imitate
+her immorality.  But the only woman who really sways him is the proudish
+Cornificia, who is almost as incapable of treachery as Pertinax himself.
+He is the best governor the City of Rome has had in our generation.  Can
+you imagine what Rome would be like without him?  Call to mind what it
+was like when Fuscianus was the governor!"
+
+"These are strange times, Sextus!"
+
+"Aye!  And it is a strange beast we have for emperor!"
+
+"Be careful!"
+
+Sextus glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Scylax followed
+closely and prevented any one from overhearing.  There was an endless
+procession now, before and behind, all bound for Daphne.  As the riders
+passed under the city gate, where the golden cherubim that Titus took
+from the Jews' temple in Jerusalem gleamed in the westering sun, Sextus
+noticed a slave of the municipium who wrote down the names of
+individuals who came and went.
+
+"There are new proscriptions brewing," he remarked.  "Some friends of
+ours will not see sunrise.  Well--I am in a mood to talk and I will not
+be silenced."
+
+"Better laugh then!" Norbanus advised.  "The deadliest crime nowadays is
+to have the appearance of being serious.  None suspects a drunken or a
+gay man."
+
+Sextus, however, was at no pains to appear gay.  He inherited the
+moribund traditions that the older Cato had typified some centuries ago.
+His young face had the sober, chiseled earnestness that had been
+typically Roman in the sterner days of the Republic.  He had blue-gray
+eyes that challenged destiny, and curly brown hair, that suggested
+flames as the westering sun brought out its redness.  Such mirth as
+haunted his rebellious lips was rather cynical than genial.  There was
+no weakness visible.  He had a pugnacious neck and shoulders.
+
+"I am the son of my father Maximus," he said, "and of my grandsire
+Sextus, and of his father Maximus, and of my great-great-grandsire
+Sextus.  It offends my dignity that men should call a hog like Commodus
+a god.  I will not.  I despise Rome for submission to him."
+
+"Yet what else is there in the world except to be a Roman citizen?"
+Norbanus asked.
+
+"As for being, there is nothing else," said Sextus.  "I would like to
+speak of doing.  It is what I do that answers what I am."
+
+"Then let it answer now!" Norbanus laughed.  He pointed to a little
+shrine beside the road, beneath a group of trees, where once the image
+of a local deity had smiled its blessing on the passer-by.  The bust of
+Commodus, as insolent as the brass of which the artist-slaves had cast
+it, had replaced the old benign divinity.  There was an attendant near
+by, costumed as a priest, whose duty was to see that travelers by that
+road did their homage to the image of the human god who ruled the Roman
+world. He struck a gong.  He gave fair warning of the deference
+required.  There was a little guard-house, fifty paces distant, just
+around the corner of the clump of trees, where the police were ready to
+execute summary justice, and floggings were inflicted on offenders who
+could not claim citizenship or who had no coin with which to buy the
+alternative reprimand.  Roman citizens were placed under arrest, to be
+submitted to all manner of indignities and to think themselves fortunate
+if they should escape with a heavy fine from a judge who had bought his
+office from an emperor's favorite.
+
+Most of the riders ahead dismounted and walked past the image, saluting
+it with right hands raised.  Many of them tossed coins to the priest's
+attendant slave.  Sextus remained in the saddle, his brow clouded with
+an angry scowl.  He drew rein, making no obeisance, but sent Scylax to
+present an offering of money to the priest, then rode on.
+
+"Your dignity appears to me expensive!" Norbanus remarked, grinning.
+"Gold?"
+
+"He may have my gold, if I may keep my self-respect!"
+
+"Incorrigible stoic!  He will take that also before long!"
+
+"I think not.  Commodus has lost his own and destroyed Rome's, but mine
+not yet.  I wish, though, that my father were in Antioch.  He, too, is
+no cringer to images of beasts in purple. I wrote to my father recently
+and warned him to leave Rome before Commodus's spies could invent an
+excuse for confiscating our estates.  I said, an absent man attracts
+less notice, and our estates are well worth plundering.  I also hinted
+that Commodus can hardly live forever, and reminded him that tides flow
+in and out--by which I meant him to understand that the next emperor may
+be another such as Aurelius, who will persecute the Christians but let
+honest men live in peace, instead of favoring the Christians and ridding
+Rome of honest men."
+
+Norbanus made a gesture with his right hand that sent the Cappadocian
+cavorting to the road's edge, scattering a little crowd that was trying
+to pass.
+
+"Why be jealous of the Christians?" he laughed.  "Isn't it their turn
+for a respite?  Think of what Nero did to them;  and Marcus Aurelius did
+little less.  They will catch it again when Commodus turns on his
+mistress Marcia;  he will harry them all the more when that day comes--
+as it is sure to.  Marcia is a Christian; when he tires of her he will
+use her Christianity for the excuse and throw the Christians to the
+lions by the thousand in order to justify himself for murdering the only
+decent woman of his acquaintance.  Sic semper tyrannus.  Say what you
+will about Marcia, she has done her best to keep Commodus from making a
+public exhibition of himself."
+
+"With what result?  He boasts he has killed no less than twelve hundred
+poor devils with his own hand in the arena.  True, he takes the
+pseudonym of Paulus when he kills lions with his javelin and drives a
+chariot in the races like a vulgar slave. But everybody knows, and he
+picks slaves for his ministers--consider that vile beast Cleander, whom
+even the rabble refused to endure another day.  I don't see that
+Marcia's influence amounts to much."
+
+"But Cleander was executed finally.  You are in a glum mood, Sextus.
+What has happened to upset you?"
+
+"It is the nothing that has happened.  There has come no answer to that
+letter I wrote to my father in Rome.  Commodus's informers may have
+intercepted it."
+
+Norbanus whistled softly.  The skewbald Cappadocian mistook that for a
+signal to exert himself and for a minute there were ructions while his
+master reined him in.
+
+"When did you write?" he demanded, when he had the horse under control
+again.
+
+"A month ago."
+
+Norbanus lapsed into a moody silence, critically staring at his friend
+when he was sure the other was not looking.  Sextus had always puzzled
+him by running risks that other men (himself, for instance) steadfastly
+avoided, and avoiding risks that other men thought insignificant.  To
+write a letter critical of Commodus was almost tantamount to suicide,
+since every Roman port and every rest-house on the roads that led to
+Rome had become infested with informers who were paid on a percentage
+basis.
+
+"Are you weary of life?" he asked after a while.
+
+"I am weary of Commodus--weary of tyranny--weary of lies and hypocrisy--
+weary of wondering what is to happen to Rome that submits to such
+bestial government--weary of shame and of the insolence of bribe-fat
+magistrates--"
+
+"Weary of your friends?" Norbanus asked.  "Don't you realize that if
+your letter fell into the hands of spies, not only will you be
+proscribed and your father executed, but whoever is known to have been
+intimate with you or with your father will be in almost equal danger?
+You should have gone to Rome in person to consult your father."
+
+"He ordered me to stay here to protect his interests.  We are rich,
+Norbanus.  We have much property in Antioch and many tenants to oversee.
+I am not one of these modern irreligious wastrels;  I obey my father--"
+
+"And betray him in an idiotic letter!"
+
+"Very well! Desert me while there is time!" said Sextus angrily.
+
+"Don't be a fool!  You are not the only proud man in the empire, Sextus.
+I don't desert my friend for such a coward's reason as that he acted
+thoughtlessly.  But I will tell you what I think, whether or not that
+pleases you, if only because I am your true friend.  You are a rash,
+impatient lover of the days gone by, possessed of genius that you betray
+by your arrogant hastiness. So now you know what I think, and what all
+your other friends think.  We admire--we love our Sextus, son of
+Maximus.  And we confess to ourselves that our lives are in danger
+because of that same Sextus, son of Maximus, whom we prefer above our
+safety. After this, if you continue to deceive yourself, none can blame
+me for it!"
+
+Sextus smiled and waved a hand to him.  It was no new revelation. He
+understood the attitude of all his friends far better than he did his
+own strange impulses that took possession of him as a rule when
+circumstances least provided an excuse.
+
+"My theory of loyalty to friendship," he remarked, "is that a man should
+dare to do what he perceives is right, and thus should prove himself
+entitled to respect."
+
+"And your friends are, in consequence, to enjoy the privilege of
+attending your crucifixion one of these days!" said Norbanus.
+
+"Nonsense.  Only slaves and highwaymen are crucified."
+
+"They call any one a highwayman who is a fugitive from what our 'Roman
+Hercules' calls justice," Norbanus answered with a gesture of
+irritation.  His own trick of finishing people's sentences did not annoy
+Sextus nearly as much as Sextus's trick of pounding on inaccuracies
+irritated him.  He pressed his horse into a canter and for a while they
+rode beside the stream called the "Donkey-drowner" without further
+conversation, each man striving to subdue the ill-temper that was on the
+verge of outbreak.
+
+Romans of the old school valued inner calm as highly as they did the
+outer semblances of dignity;  even the more modern Romans imitated that
+distinctive attitude, pretending to Augustan calmness that had actually
+ceased to be a part of public life. But with Sextus and Norbanus the
+inner struggle to be self-controlled was genuine;  they bridled
+irritation in the same way that they forced their horses to obey them--
+captains of their own souls, as it were, and scornful of changefulness.
+
+Sextus, being the only son of a great landowner, and raised in the
+traditions of a secluded valley fifty leagues away from Rome, was almost
+half a priest by privilege of ancestry.  He had been educated in the
+local priestly college, had himself performed the daily sacrifices that
+tradition imposed on the heads of families and, in his father's frequent
+absence, had attended to all the details and responsibilities of
+managing a large estate.  The gods of wood and stream and dale were very
+real to him.  The daily offering, from each meal, to the manes of his
+ancestors, whose images in wax and wood and marble were preserved in the
+little chapel attached to the old brick homestead, had inspired in him a
+feeling that the past was forever present and a man's thoughts were as
+important as his deeds.
+
+Norbanus, on the other hand, a younger son of a man less amply dowered
+with wealth and traditional authority, had other reasons for adopting,
+rather than inheriting, an attitude toward life not dissimilar from that
+of Sextus.  Gods of wood and stream to him meant very little, and he had
+not family estates to hold him to the ancient views.  To him the future
+was more real than the past, which he regarded as a state of ignorance
+from which the world was tediously struggling.  But inherently he loved
+life's decencies, although he mocked their sentimental imitations;  and
+he followed Sextus--squandered hours with him, neglecting his own
+interests (which after all were nothing too important and were well
+enough looked after by a Syracusan slave), simply because Sextus was a
+manly sort of fellow whose friendship stirred in him emotions that he
+felt were satisfying.  He was a born follower. His ugly face and rather
+mirth-provoking blue eyes, the loose, beautifully balanced seat on
+horseback and the cavalry-like carriage of his shoulders, served their
+notice to the world at large that he would stick to friends of his own
+choosing and for purely personal reasons, in spite of, and in the teeth
+of anything.
+
+"As I said," remarked Sextus, "if Pertinax comes--"
+
+"He will show us how foolish a soldier can be in the arms of a woman,"
+Norbanus remarked, laughing again, glad the long silence was broken.
+
+"Orcus (the messenger of Dis, who carried dead souls to the underworld.
+The masked slaves who dragged dead gladiators out of the arena were
+disguised to represent Orcus) take his women! What I was going to say
+was, we shall learn from him the real news from Rome."
+
+"All the names of the popular dancers!"
+
+"And if Galen is there we shall learn--"
+
+"About Commodus' health.  That is more to the point.  Now if we could
+get into Galen's chest of medicines and substitute--"
+
+"Galen is an honest doctor," Sextus interrupted.  "If Galen is there we
+will find out what the philosophers are discussing in Rome when spies
+aren't listening.  Pertinax dresses himself like a strutting peacock and
+pretends that women and money are his only interests, but what the wise
+ones said yesterday, Pertinax does today;  and what they say today, he
+will do tomorrow.  He can look more like a popinjay and act more like a
+man than any one in Rome."
+
+"Who cares how they behave in Rome?  The city has gone mad," Norbanus
+answered.  "Nowadays the best a man can do is to preserve his own goods
+and his own health.  Ride to a conference do we?  Well, nothing but
+words will come of it, and words are dangerous.  I like my danger
+tangible and in the open where it can be faced.  Three times last week I
+was approached by Glyco--you remember him?--that son of Cocles and the
+Jewess--asking me to join a secret mystery of which he claims to be the
+unextinguishable lamp.  But there are too many mysteries and not enough
+plain dealing.  The only mystery about Glyco is how he avoids indictment
+for conspiracy--what with his long nose and sly eyes, and his way of
+hinting that he knows enough to turn the world upside down.  If Pertinax
+talks mystery I will class him with the other foxes who slink into holes
+when the agenda look like becoming acta.  Show me only a raised standard
+in an open field and I will take my chance beside it.  But I sicken of
+all this talk of what we might do if only somebody had the courage to
+stick a dagger into Commodus."
+
+"The men who could persuade themselves to do that, are persuaded that a
+worse brute might succeed him," Sextus answered.  "It is no use killing
+a Commodus to find a Nero in his shoes.  If the successor were in sight
+--and visibly a man not a monster--there are plenty of men brave enough
+to give the dagger-thrust.  But the praetorian guard, that makes and
+unmakes emperors, has been tasting the sweets of tyranny ever since
+Marcus Aurelius died. They despise their 'Roman Hercules' (Commodus'
+favorite name for himself)--who doesn't?  But they grow fat and enjoy
+themselves under his tyranny, so they would never consent to leaving him
+unguarded, as happened to Nero, for instance, or to replacing him with
+any one of the caliber of Aurelius, if such a man could be found."
+
+"Well, then, what do we go to talk about?" Norbanus asked.
+
+"We go for information."
+
+"Dea dia! (the most mysterious of all the Roman deities)  We inform
+ourselves that Rome has been renamed 'The City of Commodus'--that
+offices are bought and sold--that there were forty consuls in a year,
+each of whom paid for the office in turn--that no man's life is safe--
+that it is wiser to take a cold in the head to Galen than to kiss a
+mule's nose (it was a common superstition that a cold in the head could
+be cured by kissing a mule's nose)--and then what?  I begin to think
+that Pertinax is wiser to amuse himself with women after all!"
+
+Sextus edged his horse a little closer to the skewbald and for more than
+a minute appeared to be studying Norbanus' face, the other grinning at
+him and making the stallion prance.
+
+"Are you never serious?" asked Sextus.
+
+"Always and forever, melancholy friend of mine!  I seriously dread the
+consequences of that letter that you wrote to Rome! Unlike you, I have
+not much more than life to lose, but I value it all the more for being
+less encumbered.  Like Apollonius, I pray for few possessions and no
+needs!  But what I have, I treasure;  I propose to live long and make
+use of life!"
+
+"And I!" retorted Sextus.
+
+With a gesture of disgust, he turned to stare behind him at the crowd on
+its way to Daphne, making such a business of pleasure as reduced the
+pleasure to a toil of Sisyphus (who had to roll a heavy stone
+perpetually up a steep hill in the underworld. Before he reached the top
+the stone always rolled down again).
+
+"I have more than gold," said Sextus, "which it seems to me that any
+crooked-minded fool may have.  I have a spirit in me and a taste for
+philosophies;  I have a feeling that a man's life is a gift entrusted to
+him by the gods--for use--to be preserved--"
+
+"By writing foolish letters, doubtless!" said Norbanus.  "Come along,
+let us gallop.  I am weary of the backs of all these roisterers."
+
+And so they rode to Daphne full pelt, greatly to the anger of the too
+well dressed Antiochenes, who cursed them for the mud they splashed from
+wayside pools and for the dung and dust they kicked up into plucked and
+penciled faces.
+
+
+
+
+II.  A CONFERENCE AT DAPHNE
+
+
+
+It was not yet dusk.  The sun shone on the bronze roof of the temple of
+Apollo, making such a contrast to, and harmony with, marble and the
+green of giant cypresses as only music can suggest.  The dying breeze
+stirred hardly a ripple on the winding ponds, so marble columns, trees
+and statuary were reflected amid shadows of the swans in water tinted by
+the colors of the sinking sun.  There was a murmur of wind in the tops
+of the trees and a stirring of linen-clad girls near the temple
+entrance--voices droning from the near-by booths behind the shrubbery--
+one flute, like the plaint of Orpheus summoning Eurydice--a blossom-
+scented air and an enfolding mystery of silence.
+
+Pertinax, the governor of Rome, had merely hinted at Olympian desire,
+whereat some rich Antiochenes, long privileged, had been ejected with
+scant ceremony from a small marble pavilion on an islet, formed by a
+branch of the River Ladon that had been guided twenty years ago by
+Hadrian's engineers in curves of exquisitely studied beauty.  From
+between Corinthian columns was a view of nearly all the temple precincts
+and of the lawns where revelers would presently forget restraint.  The
+first night of the Daphne season usually was the wildest night of all
+the year, but they began demurely, and for the present there was the
+restraint of expectation.
+
+Because there was yet snow on mountain-tops and the balmy air would
+carry a suggestion of a chill at sunset, there were cunningly wrought
+charcoal braziers set near the gilded couches, grouped around a
+semicircular low table so as to give each guest an unobstructed view
+from the pavilion.  Pertinax--neither guest nor host, but a god, as it
+were, who had arrived and permitted the city of Antioch to ennoble
+itself by paying his expenses--stretched his long length on the middle
+couch, with Galen the physician on his right hand, Sextus on his left.
+Beyond Galen lay Tarquinius Divius and Sulpicius Glabrio, friends of
+Pertinax; and on Sextus' left was Norbanus, and beyond him Marcus Fabius
+a young tribune on Pertinax' staff.  There was only one couch
+unoccupied.
+
+Galen was an older man than Pertinax, who was already graying at the
+temples.  Galen had the wrinkled, smiling, shrewd face of an old
+philosopher who understood the trick of making himself socially
+prominent in order to pursue his calling unimpeded by the bitter
+jealousies of rivals.  He understood all about charlatanry, mocked it in
+all its disguises and knew how to defeat it with sarcastic wit.  He wore
+none of the distinguishing insignia that practising physicians usually
+favored;  the studied plainness of his attire was a notable contrast to
+the costly magnificence of Pertinax, whose double-purple-bordered and
+fringed toga, beautifully woven linen and jeweled ornaments seemed
+chosen to combine suggestions of the many public offices he had
+succeeded to.
+
+He was a tall, lean, handsome veteran with naturally curly fair hair and
+a beard that, had it been dark, would have made him look like an
+Assyrian.  There was a world of humor in his eyes, and an expression on
+his weathered face of wonder at the ways of men--an almost comical
+confession of his own inferiority of birth, combined with matter-of-fact
+ability to do whatever called for strength, endurance and mere ordinary
+common sense.
+
+"You are almost ashamed of your own good fortune," Galen told him.  "You
+wear all that jewelry, and swagger like the youngest tribune, to conceal
+your diffidence.  Being honest, you are naturally frugal;  but you are
+ashamed of your own honesty, so you imitate the court's extravagance and
+made up for it with little meannesses that comfort your sense of
+extremes.  The truth is, Pertinax, you are a man with a boy's
+enthusiasms, a boy with a man's experience."
+
+"You ought to know," said Pertinax.  "You tutored Commodus. Whoever
+could take a murderer at the age of twelve and keep him from breaking
+the heart of a Marcus Aurelius knows more about men and boys than I do."
+
+"Ah, but I failed," said Galen.  "The young Commodus was like a nibbling
+fish;  you thought you had him, but he always took the bait and left the
+hook.  The wisdom I fed to him fattened his wickedness.  If I had known
+then what I have learned from teaching Commodus and others, not even
+Marcus Aurelius could have persuaded me to undertake the task--medical
+problem though it was, and promotion though it was, and answer though it
+was to all the doctors who denounced me as a charlatan.  I bought my
+fashionable practise at the cost of knowing it was I who taught young
+Commodus the technique of wickedness by revealing to him all its
+sinuosities and how, and why, it floods a man's mind."
+
+"He was a beast in any case," said Pertinax.
+
+"Yes, but a baffled, blind beast.  I removed the bandage from his eyes."
+
+"He would have pulled it off himself."
+
+"I did it.  I turned a mere golden-haired savage into a criminal who
+knows what he is doing."
+
+"Well, drink and forget it!" said Pertinax.  "I, too, have done things
+that are best forgotten.  We attain success by learning from defeat, and
+we forget defeat in triumph.  I know of no triumph that did not blot out
+scores of worse things than defeat. When I was in Britain I subdued
+rebellion and restored the discipline of mutinying legions.  How?  I am
+not such a fool as to tell you all that happened!  When I was in Africa
+men called me a great proconsul.  So I was.  They would welcome me back
+there, if all I hear about the present man is true.  But do you suppose
+I did not fail in certain instances?  They praise me for the aqueducts I
+built, and for the peace I left along the border. But I also left dry
+bones, and sons of dead men who will teach their grandsons how to hate
+the name of Rome!  I sent a hundred thousand slaves from Africa.
+Sometimes, when I have dined unwisely and there is no Galen near to
+freshen up my belly juices, I have nightmares, in which men and women
+cry to me for water that I took from them to pour into the cities.  I
+have learned this, Galen:  Do one thing wisely and you will commit ten
+follies.  You are lucky if you have but ten failures to detract from one
+success--as lucky as a man who has but ten mistresses to interfere with
+his enjoyment of his wife!"
+
+He spoke of mistresses because the girls were coming down the temple
+steps to take part in the sunset ceremony.  The torches they carried
+were unlighted yet;  their figures, draped in linen, looked almost
+super-humanly lovely in the deepening twilight, and as they laid their
+garlands on the marble altar near the temple steps and grouped
+themselves again on either side of it their movements suggested a
+phantasmagoria fading away into infinite distance, as if all the
+universe were filled with women without age or blemish.  There began to
+be a scent of incense in the air.
+
+"We only imitate this kind of thing in Rome," said Pertinax.  "A larger
+scale, a coarser effect.  What I find thrilling is the sensation they
+contrive here of unseen mysteries.  Whereas--"
+
+"There won't be any mystery left presently!  They'll strip your last
+veil from imagination!" Sextus interrupted, laughing.  "Men say Hadrian
+tried to chasten this place, but he only made them realize the artistic
+value of an appearance of chastity, that can be thrown off.  Hark!  The
+evening hymn."
+
+The torches suddenly were lighted by attendant slaves.  The stirring,
+shaken sistra wrought a miracle of sound that set the nerves all
+tingling as the high priest, followed by his boys with swinging censers
+and the members of the priestly college, four by four, came chanting
+down the temple steps.  To an accompanying pleading, sobbing note of
+flutes the high priest laid an offering of fruit, milk, wine and honey
+in the midst of the heaped-up garlands (for Apollo was the god of all
+fertility as well as of healing and war and flocks and oracles).  Then
+came the grand Homeric hymn to Glorious Apollo, men's and boys' and
+women's voices blending in a surging paean like an ocean's music.
+
+The last notes died away in distant echoes.  There was silence for a
+hundred breaths;  then music of flute and lyre and sistra as the priests
+retreated up the temple steps followed by fanfare on a dozen trumpets as
+the door swung to behind the priests. Instantly, then, shouts of
+laughter--torchlight scattering the shadows amid gloom--green cypresses
+--fire--color splurging on the bosom of the water--babel of hundreds of
+voices as the gay Antiochenes swarmed out from behind the trees--and a
+cheer, as the girls by the altar threw their garments off and scampered
+naked along the river-bank toward a bridge that joined the temple island
+to the sloping lawns, where the crowd ran to await them.
+
+"Apollo having healed the world of sin, we now do what we like!" said
+Sextus.  "Pertinax, I pledge you continence for this one night!  Good
+Galen, may Apollo's wisdom ooze from you like sweat; for all our sakes,
+be you the arbiter of what we drink, lest drunkenness deprive us of our
+reason!  Comites, let us eat like warriors--one course, and then
+discussion of tomorrow's plan."
+
+"Your military service should have taught you more respect for your
+seniors, as well as how to eat and drink temperately," said Pertinax.
+"Will you teach your grandmother to suck eggs?  I was the first
+grammarian in Rome before you were born and a tribune before you felt
+down on your cheek.  I am the governor of Rome, my boy.  Who are you,
+that you should lecture me?"
+
+"If you call that a lecture, concede that I dared," Sextus answered.  "I
+did not flatter you by coming here, or come to flatter you.  I came
+because my father tells me you are a Roman beyond praise.  I am a Roman.
+I believe praise is worthless unless proven to the hilt--as for
+instance:  I have come to bare my thoughts to you, which is a bold
+compliment in these days of treachery."
+
+"Keep your thoughts under cover," said Pertinax, glancing at the steward
+and the slaves who were beginning to carry in the meal. But he was
+evidently pleased, and Sextus's next words pleased him more:
+
+"I am ready to do more than think about you, I will follow where you
+lead--except into licentiousness!"
+
+He lay on both elbows and stared at the scene with disgust. Naked girls,
+against a background of the torchlit water and the green and purple
+gloom of cypresses, was nothing to complain of; statuary, since it could
+not move, was not as pleasing to the eye;  but shrieks of idiotic
+laughter and debauchery of beauty sickened him.
+
+There came a series of sounds at the pavilion entrance, where a litter
+was set down on marble pavement and a eunuch's shrill voice criticized
+the slow unrolling of a carpet.
+
+"What did I warn you?" Norbanus whispered, laughing in Sextus's ear.
+
+Pertinax got to his feet, long-leggedly statuesque, and strode toward
+the antechamber on his right, whence presently he returned with a woman
+on his arm, he stroking her hand as it rested on his.  He introduced
+Sextus and Norbanus;  the others knew her; Galen greeted her with a
+wrinkled grin that seemed to imply confidence.
+
+"Now that Cornificia has come, not even Sextus need worry about our
+behavior!" said Galen, and everybody except Sextus grinned. It was
+notorious that Cornificia refined and restrained Pertinax, whereas his
+lawful wife Flavia Titiana merely drove him to extremes.
+
+This Roman Aspasia had an almost Grecian face, beneath a coiled
+extravagance of dark brown hair.  Her violet eyes were quietly
+intelligent;  her dress plain white and not elaborately fringed, with
+hardly any jewelry.  She cultivated modesty and all the older graces
+that had grown unfashionable since the Emperor Marcus Aurelius died.  In
+all ways, in fact, she was the opposite of Flavia Titiana--it was hard
+to tell whether from natural preference or because the contrast to his
+wife's extremes of noisy gaiety and shameless license gave her a
+stronger hold on Pertinax.  Rome's readiest slanderers had nothing
+scandalous to tell of Cornificia, whereas Flavia Titiana's inconstancies
+were a by-word.
+
+She refused to let Galen yield the couch on Pertinax's right hand but
+took the vacant one at the end of the half-moon table, saying she
+preferred it--which was likely true enough;  it gave her a view of all
+the faces without turning her head or appearing to stare.
+
+For a long time there was merely desultory conversation while the feast,
+restricted within moderate proportions by request of Pertinax, was
+brought on.
+
+There were eels, for which Daphne was famous;  alphests and callichthys;
+pompilos, a purple fish, said to have been born from sea-foam at the
+birth of Aphrodite;  boops and bedradones; gray mullet;  cuttle-fish;
+tunny-fish and mussels.  Followed in their order pheasants, grouse,
+swan, peacock and a large pig stuffed with larks and mincemeat.  Then
+there were sweetmeats of various kinds, and a pudding invented in
+Persia, made with honey and dates, with a sauce of frozen cream and
+strawberries.  By Galen's order only seven sorts of wine were served, so
+when the meal was done the guests were neither drunk nor too well fed to
+carry on a conference.
+
+No entertainers were provided.  Normally the space between the table and
+the front of the pavilion would have been occupied by acrobats, dancers
+and jugglers;  but Pertinax dismissed even the impudent women who came
+to lean elbows on the marble railing and sing snatches of suggestive
+song.  He sent slaves to stand outside and keep the crowd away, his
+lictor and his personal official bodyguard being kept out of sight in a
+small stone house near the pavilion kitchen at the rear among the trees,
+in order not to arouse unwelcome comment.  It was known he was in
+Daphne; there was even a subdued expectation in Antioch that his
+unannounced visit portended the extortion of extra tribute.  The Emperor
+Commodus was known to be in his usual straits for money. Given a
+sufficient flow of wine, the sight of bodyguard and lictor might have
+been enough to start a riot, the Antiochenes being prone to outbreak
+when their passions were aroused by drink and women.
+
+There was a long silence after Pertinax had dismissed the steward.
+Galen's old personal attendant took charge of the amphora of snow-cooled
+Falernian;  he poured for each in turn and then retired into a corner to
+be out of earshot, or at any rate to emphasize that what he might hear
+would not concern him. Pertinax strolled to the front of the pavilion
+and looked out to make sure there were no eavesdroppers, staring for a
+long time at the revelry that was warming up into an orgy.  They were
+dancing in rings under the moon, their shadowy figures rendered weird by
+smoky torchlight.  Cornificia at last broke on his reverie:
+
+"You wish to join them, Pertinax?  That would dignify even our Roman
+Hercules--to say nothing of you!"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, but his eyes were glittering.
+
+"If Marcia could govern Commodus as you rule me, he would be safer on
+the throne!" he answered, coming to sit upright on the couch beside her.
+It was evident that he intended that speech to release all tongues;  he
+looked from face to face expectantly, but no one spoke until Cornificia
+urged him to protect himself against the night breeze.  He threw a
+purple-bordered cloak over his shoulders.  It became him;  he looked so
+official in it, and majestic, that even Sextus--rebel that he was
+against all modern trumpery--forebore to break the silence.  It was
+Galen who spoke next:
+
+"Pertinax, if you might choose an emperor, whom would you nominate?
+Remember:  He must be a soldier, used to the stench of marching legions.
+None could govern Rome whose nose goes up in the air at the smell of
+sweat and garlic."
+
+There was a murmur of approval.  Cornificia stroked the long, strong
+fingers of the man she idolized.  Sextus gave rein to his impulse then,
+brushing aside Norbanus' hand that warned him to bide his time:
+
+"Many more than I," he said, "are ready to throw in our lot with you,
+Pertinax--aye, unto death!  You would restore Rome's honor. I believe my
+father could persuade a hundred noblemen to take your part, if you would
+lead.  I can answer for five or six men of wealth and influence, not
+reckoning a friend or two who--"
+
+"Why talk foolishness!" said Pertinax.  "The legions will elect
+Commodus' successor.  They will sell Rome to the highest bidder,
+probably;  and though they like me as a soldier they dislike my
+discipline.  I am the governor of Rome and still alive in spite of it
+because even Commodus' informers know it would be silly to accuse me of
+intrigue.  Not even Commodus would listen to such talk.  I lead the gay
+life, for my own life's sake.  All know me as a roisterer.  I am said to
+have no ambition other than to live life sensuously."
+
+Galen laughed.
+
+"That may deceive Commodus," he said.  "The thoughtful Romans know you
+as a frugal governor, who stamped out plague and--"
+
+"You did that," said Pertinax.
+
+"Who enabled me?"
+
+"It was a simple thing to have the tenements burned.  Besides, it
+profited the city--new streets;  and there was twice the amount of tax
+on the new tenements they raised.  I, personally, made a handsome profit
+on the purchase of a few burned houses."
+
+"And as the governor who broke the famine," Galen continued.
+
+"That was simple enough, but you may as well thank Cornificia. She found
+out through the women who the men were who were holding corn for
+speculation.  All I did was to hand their names to Commodus;  he
+confiscated all the corn and sold it--at a handsome profit to himself,
+since it had cost him nothing!"
+
+"While we sit here and cackle like Asian birds, Commodus renames Rome
+the City of Commodus and still lives!" Sextus grumbled.
+
+"Nor can he be easily got rid of," remarked Daedalus the tribune. "He
+goes to and fro from the palace through underground tunnels. Men sleep
+in his room who are all involved with him in cruelties and infamy, so
+they guard him carefully.  Besides, whoever tried to murder him would
+probably kill Paulus by mistake!  The praetorian guard is contented,
+being well paid and permitted all sorts of privileges.  Who can get past
+the praetorian guard?"
+
+"Any one!" said Pertinax.  "The point is not, who shall kill Commodus?
+But who shall be raised in his place?  There are thirty thousand ways to
+kill a man.  Ask Galen!"
+
+Old Galen laughed at that.
+
+"As many ways as there are stars in heaven;  but the stars have their
+say in the matter!  None can kill a man until his destiny says yes to
+it.  Not even a doctor," he added, chuckling. "Otherwise the doctors
+would have killed me long ago with jealousy!  A man dies when his inner
+man grows sick and weary of him.  Then a pin-prick does it, or a sudden
+terror.  Until that time comes you may break his skull, and do not more
+than spoil his temper!  As a philosopher I have learned two things:
+respect many, but trust few.  But as a doctor I have learned only one
+thing for certain:  that no man actually dies until his soul is tired of
+him."
+
+"Whose soul should grow sick sooner than that of Commodus?" asked
+Sextus.
+
+"Not if his soul is evil and delights in evil--as his does!" Galen
+retorted.  "If he should turn virtuous, then perhaps, yes. But in that
+case we should wish him to live, although his soul would prefer the
+contrary and leave him to die by the first form of death that should
+appear--in spite of all the doctors and the guards and tasters of the
+royal food."
+
+"Some one should convert him then!" said Sextus.  "Cornificia, can't
+Marcia make a Christian of him;  Christians pretend to oppose all the
+infamies he practises.  It would be a merry joke to have a Christian
+emperor, who died because his soul was sick of him!  It would be a
+choice jest--he being the one who has encouraged Christianity by
+reversing all Marcus Aurelius' wise precautions against their seditious
+blasphemy!"
+
+"You speak fanatically, but you have touched the heart of the problem,"
+said Cornificia.  "It is Marcia who makes life possible for Commodus--
+Marcia and her Christians.  They help Marcia protect him because he is
+the only emperor who never persecuted them, and because Marcia sees to
+it that they are free to meet together without having even to bribe the
+police.  There is only one way to get rid of Commodus:  Persuade Marcia
+that her own life is in danger from him, and that she will have a full
+voice in nominating his successor."
+
+"Probably true," remarked Pertinax.  "Whom would she nominate? That is
+the point."
+
+"It would be simpler to kill Marcia," said Daedalus.  "Thereafter let
+things take their course.  Without Marcia to protect him--"
+
+"No man knows much," Galen interrupted.  "Marcia's soul may be all the
+soul Commodus has!  If she should grow sick of him--!"
+
+"She grew sick long ago," said Cornificia.  "But she is forever thinking
+of her Christians and knows no other way to protect them than to make
+Commodus love her.  Ugh!  It is like the story of Andromeda.  Who is to
+act Perseus?"
+
+(In the fable, Andromeda had to be chained to a cliff to be devoured by
+a monster, in order to save her people from the anger of the god
+Poseidon.  Perseus slew the monster.)
+
+"There are thirty thousand ways of killing," Pertinax repeated, "but if
+we kill one monster, four or five others will fight for his place,
+unless, like Perseus, we have the head of a Medusa with which to freeze
+them into stone!  There is no substitute for Commodus in sight.  The
+only man whose face would freeze all rivals is Severus the
+Carthaginian!"
+
+"We are none of us blind," said Cornificia.
+
+"You mean me?  I am too old," answered Pertinax.  "I don't like tyranny,
+and people know it.  It is something they should not know.  An old man
+may be all very well when he has reigned for twenty years and men are
+used to him, and he used to the task, as was Augustus;  but an old man
+new to the throne lacks energy. And besides, they would never endure a
+man whose father was a charcoal-seller, as mine was.  I have made my way
+in life by looking at facts and refusing to deceive myself;  with the
+exception of that, I have no especial wisdom, nor any unusual ability."
+
+"If wisdom were all that is needed," said Sextus, "we should put good
+Galen on the throne!"
+
+"He is too old and wise to let you try to do it!"  Galen answered.  "But
+you spoke about the head of a Medusa, Pertinax, and mentioned Lucius
+Septimius Severus.  He commands three legions at Caruntum in Pannonia.
+(Roughly speaking, the S.W. portion of modern Hungary whose frontiers
+were then occupied by very warlike tribes.)  If there is one man living
+who can freeze men's blood by scowling at them, it is he!  And he is not
+as old as you are."
+
+"I have thought of him only to hate him," said Pertinax.  "He would not
+follow me, nor I him.  He is one of three men who would fight for the
+throne if somebody slew Commodus, although he would not run the risk of
+slaying him himself, and he would betray us if we should take him into
+confidence.  I know him well.  He is a lawyer and a Carthaginian.  He
+would never ask for the nomination;  he is too crafty.  He would say his
+legions nominated him against his will and that to have disobeyed them
+would have laid him open to the punishment for treason.  (This is what
+Severus actually did, later on, after Pertinax's death.) The other two
+are Pescennius Niger, who commands the legions in Syria, and Clodius
+Albinus who commands in Britain.  We must find a man who can forestall
+all three of them by winning, first, the praetorian guard, and then the
+senate and the Romans by dint of sound reforms and justice."
+
+"You are he!  Rome trusts you.  So does the senate," said Cornificia.
+"Marcia trusts me.  The praetorian guard trusts her. If I can persuade
+Marcia that her life is in danger from Commodus--"
+
+"But how?" Daedalus interrupted.
+
+"We can take the praetorian guard by surprise," Cornificia went on,
+ignoring him.  "They can be tricked into declaring for the man whom
+Marcia's friends nominate.  Having once declared for him they will be
+too proud of having made an emperor, and too unwilling to seem
+vacillating, to reverse themselves in any man's favor, even though he
+should command six legions.  The senate will gladly accept one who has
+governed Rome as frugally as Pertinax has done.  If the senate confirms
+the nominee of the praetorian guard, the Roman populace will do the rest
+by acclamation.  Then, three months of upright government--deification
+by the senate--"
+
+Pertinax laughed explosively--an honest, chesty laugh, unqualified by
+any subtleties, suggesting a trace of the peasantry from which he
+sprang.  It made Cornificia wince.
+
+"Can you imagine me a god?" he asked.
+
+"I can imagine you an emperor," said Sextus.  "It is true;  you have no
+following among the legions just at present.  But I make one, and there
+are plenty of energetic men who think as I do.  My friend Norbanus here
+will follow me.  My father--"
+
+
+Noises near the open window interrupted him.  An argument seemed to be
+going on between the slaves whom Pertinax had set to keep the roisterers
+away and some one who demanded admission.  Near at hand was a woman's
+voice, shrilling and scolding.  Then another voice--Scylax, the slave
+who had ridden the red mare.  Pertinax strode to the window again and
+leaned out.  Cornificia whispered to Galen:
+
+"If the truth were known, he is afraid of Flavia Titiana.  As a wife she
+is bad enough, but as an empress--"
+
+Galen nodded.
+
+"If you love your Pertinax," he answered, "keep him off the throne!  He
+has too many scruples."
+
+She frowned, having few, which were firm and entirely devoted to
+Pertinax' fortune.
+
+"Love him?  I would give him up to see him deified!" she whispered;  and
+again Galen nodded, deeply understanding.
+
+"That is because you have never had children," he assured her, smiling.
+"You mother Pertinax, who is more than twice your age--just as Marcia
+has mothered that monster Commodus until her heart is breaking."
+
+"But I thought you were Pertinax' friend?"
+
+"So I am."
+
+"And his urgent adviser to--"
+
+"Yes, so I was.  I have changed my opinion;  only the maniacs never do
+that.  Pertinax would make a splendid minister for Lucius Severus;  and
+the two of them could bring back the Augustan days.  Persuade him to it.
+He must forget he hates him."
+
+"Let him come!" said the voice of Pertinax.  He was still leaning out,
+with one hand on a marble pillar, much more interested in the moonlit
+view of revelry than in the altercation between slaves.  He strolled
+back and stood smiling at Cornificia, his handsome face expressing
+satisfaction but a rather humorous amusement at his inability to
+understand her altogether.
+
+"Are you like all other women?" he asked.  "I just saw a naked woman
+stab a man with her hairpin and kick his corpse into the shrubbery
+before the breath was out of it!"
+
+"Galen has deserted you," said Cornificia.  The murder was
+uninteresting;  nobody made any comment.
+
+"Not he!" Pertinax answered, and went and sat on Galen's couch. "You
+find me not man enough for the senate to make a god of me--is that it,
+Galen?"
+
+"Too much of a man to be an emperor," said Galen, smiling amid wrinkles.
+"By observing a man's virtues one may infer what his faults are.  You
+would try to rule the empire honestly, which is impossible.  A more
+dishonest man would let it rule itself and claim the credit, whereas you
+would give the praise to others, who would shoulder off the work and all
+the blame on to you.  An empire is like a human body, which heals itself
+if the head will let it.  Too many heads--a conference of doctors--and
+the patient dies!  One doctor, doing nothing with an air of confidence,
+and the patient gets well!  There, I have told you more than all the
+senate knows!"
+
+
+Came Scylax, out of breath, less menial than most men's slaves, his head
+and shoulders upright and the hand that held a letter thrust well
+forward as if what he had to do were more important than the way he did
+it.
+
+"This came," he said, standing beside Sextus' couch.  "Cadmus brought
+it, running all the way from Antioch."
+
+His hand was trembling;  evidently Cadmus had by some means learned the
+contents of the letter and had told.
+
+"I and Cadmus--" he said, and then hesitated.
+
+"What?"
+
+"--are faithful, no matter what happens."
+
+Scylax stood erect with closed lips.  Sextus broke the seal, merely
+glancing at Pertinax, taking permission for granted.  He frowned as he
+read, bit his lip, his face growing crimson and white alternately.  When
+he had mastered himself he handed the letter to Pertinax.
+
+"I always supposed you protected my father," he said, struggling to
+appear calm.  But his eyes gave the story away--grieved, mortified,
+indignant.  Scylax offered him his arm to lean on. Norbanus, setting
+both hands on his shoulders from behind, obliged him to sit down.
+
+"Calm!" Norbanus whispered, "Calm!  Your friends are your friends.  What
+has happened?"
+
+Pertinax read the letter and passed it to Cornificia, then paced the
+floor with hands behind him.
+
+"Is that fellow to be trusted?" he asked with a jerk of his head toward
+Scylax.  He seemed nearly as upset as Sextus was.
+
+Sextus nodded, not trusting himself to speak, knowing that if he did he
+would insult a man who might be guiltless in spite of appearances.
+
+"Commodus commanded me to visit Antioch, as he said, for a rest," said
+Pertinax.  "The public excuse was, that I should look into the
+possibility of holding the Olympic games here.  Strangely enough, I
+suspected nothing.  He has been flatteringly friendly of late.  Those
+whom I requested him to spare, he spared, even though their names were
+on his proscription list and I had not better excuse than that they had
+done no wrong!  The day before I left I brought a list to him of names
+that I commended to his favor--your father's name among them, Sextus."
+
+Pertinax turned his back again and strode toward the window, where he
+stood like a statue framed in the luminous gloom.  The only part of him
+that moved was his long fingers, weaving together behind him until the
+knuckles cracked.
+
+Cornificia, subduing her contralto voice, read the letter aloud:
+
+
+"To Nimius Secundus Sextus, son of Galienus Maximus, the freedman Rufus
+Glabrio sends humble greeting.
+
+"May the gods give solace and preserve you.  Notwithstanding all your
+noble father's piety--his respect for elders and superiors--he was
+accused of treason and of blasphemy toward the emperor, by whose orders
+he was seized yesterday and beheaded the same day. The estates have
+already been seized.  It is said they will be sold to Asinus Sejanus,
+who is probably the source of the accusation against your father.
+
+"I and three other freedmen made our escape and will attempt to reach
+Tarentum, where we will await instructions from you. Titus, the son of
+the freedman Paulinus, will convey this letter to Brundisium and thence
+by boat to Dyrrachium, whence he will send it by post in the charge of a
+Jew whom he says he can trust.
+
+"It is a certainty that orders will go forth to seize yourself, since
+the estates in Antioch are known to be of great value. Therefore, we
+your true friends and devoted servants, urge you to make all speed in
+escaping.  Stay not to make provision for yourself, but travel without
+encumbrances.  Hide!  Hasten!
+
+"We commend this letter to you as a sure proof that we ourselves are to
+be trusted, since, if it should fall into the hands of an informer by
+the way, our lives undoubtedly would pay the forfeit. We have not much
+money, but enough for the expenses of a journey to a foreign land.  The
+place where we will hide near Tarentum is known to you.  In deep
+anxiety, and not without such sacrifices to the gods and to the manes of
+your noble ancestors as means permit, we will await your coming."
+--RUFUS GLABRIO "Freedman of the illustrious Galienus Maximus."
+
+Pertinax turned from the window.  "The Jews have a saying," he said,
+"that who keepeth his mouth and his tongue, keepeth his soul from
+trouble.  Often I warned Maximus that he was too free with his speech.
+He counted too much on my protection.  Now it remains to be seen whether
+Commodus has not proscribed me!"
+
+Sextus and Norbanus stood together, Scylax behind them, Norbanus
+whispering;  plainly enough Norbanus was urging patience--discretion--
+deliberate thought, whereas Sextus could hardly think at all for anger
+that reddened his eyes.
+
+"What can I do for you?  What can I do?" wondered Pertinax.
+
+Then Cornificia was on her feet.
+
+"There is nothing--nothing you can do!" she insisted.  She avoided
+Galen's eyes;  the old philosopher was watching her as if she were the
+subject of some new experiment.  "Let Commodus learn as much as that
+Sextus was here in this pavilion and--"
+
+Sextus interrupted, very proudly:
+
+"I will not endanger my friends.  Who will lend me a dagger? This toy
+that I wear is too short and not sharp.  You may forget me, Pertinax.
+My slaves will bury me.  But play you the man and save Rome!"
+
+Then the tribune spoke up.  He was younger than all of them.
+
+"Sextus is right.  They will know he was here.  They will probably
+torture his slaves and learn about that letter that has reached him.  If
+he runs and hides, we shall all be accused of having helped him to
+escape;  whereas--"
+
+"What?"  Galen asked him as he hesitated.
+
+"If he dies by his own hand, he will not only save all his slaves from
+the torture but remove the suspicion from us and we will still be free
+to mature our--"
+
+"Cowardice!"  Norbanus finished the sentence for him.
+
+"Aye, some of us would hardly feel like noble Romans!" Pertinax said
+grimly.  "Possibly I can protect you, Sextus.  Let us think of some
+great favor you can do the emperor, providing an excuse for me to
+interfere.  I might even take you to Rome with me and--"
+
+Galen laughed, and Cornificia drew in her breath, bit her lip.
+
+"Why do you laugh, Galen?" Pertinax strode over to him and stood
+staring.
+
+"Because," said Galen, "I know so little after all.  I cannot tell a
+beast's blood from a man's.  Our Commodus would kill you with all the
+more peculiar enjoyment because he has flattered you so often publicly
+and called you 'father Pertinax.'  He poisoned his own father;  why not
+you?  They will tell him you have frequently befriended Sextus.  They
+will show him Sextus' father's name on that list of names that you
+commended to his favor.  Do you follow me?"
+
+"By Jupiter, not I!" said Pertinax.
+
+"He is sure to learn about this letter that has come." said Galen.  "If
+you, in fearful loyalty to Commodus, should instantly attempt to make a
+prisoner of Sextus;  if, escaping, he is killed, and you bear witness--
+that would please Commodus almost as much as to see gladiators killed in
+the arena.  If you wept over the death of Sextus, that would please him
+even more.  He would enjoy your feelings.  Do you remember how he picked
+two gladiators who were brothers twins they were--and when the slayer of
+his twin-brother saluted, Commodus got down into the arena and kissed
+him?  You yourself must announce to him the news of Sextus' death, and
+he will kiss you also!"
+
+"Vale!" remarked Sextus.  "I die willingly enough."
+
+"You are dead already," Galen answered.  "Didn't Pertinax see some one's
+body kicked into the bushes?"
+
+There was silence.  They all glanced at one another.  Only Galen,
+sipping at his wine, seemed philosophically calm.
+
+"I personally should not be an eye-witness," Galen remarked.  "I am a
+doctor, whose certificate of death not even Commodus would doubt.  In
+the dark I might recognize Sextus' garments, even though I could not see
+his features.  And--" he added pointedly--"neither I nor any one can
+tell a beast's blood from a man's."
+
+"Daedalus!" said Pertinax with sudden resolution.  "Get my purse. My
+slave has it.  Sextus shall not go empty-handed."
+
+
+
+
+III.  MATERNUS-LATRO
+
+
+
+Sorbanus brought the skewbald stallion.  Not far away a group of women
+danced around a dozen drunken men, who sang uproariously. Seen against
+the background of purple and dark-green gloom, with crimson torchlight
+flaring on the quiet water and the moon descending behind trees beyond
+them, they were mystically beautiful--seemed not to belong to earth, any
+more than the pan-pipe music did.
+
+"Ride into their midst!" Norbanus urged, pointing.  "Tickle the stallion
+thus."
+
+The Cappadocian lashed out savagely.
+
+"Here is a bottle of goat's blood.  I will bring weapons, and I will
+join you as soon as possible after I have made sure that the temple
+priests, and all Daphne, are positive about your death. Now mount and
+ride!"
+
+Sextus swung on to the stallion's back as if a catapult had thrown him.
+Until then he had let others do the ordering;  he had preferred to let
+them take their own precautions, form their own plans and subject
+himself to any course they wished, after which he should be free to face
+his destiny and fight it without feeling he had handicapped his friends
+by wilfulness.  He had not even issued a direct command to Scylax, his
+own slave.  That was characteristic of him.  Nor was it at his
+suggestion that Norbanus volunteered to share his outlawry.  But it was
+also characteristic that he made no gesture of dissent;  he accepted
+Norbanus' loyalty with a quiet smile that rather scorned words as
+unnecessary.
+
+Now he drove his heels into the Cappadocian with vigor, for the die was
+cast.  The stallion, impatient of new mastery, reared and plunged,
+snorted, came back on the bit in an attempt to get it in his teeth, and
+bolted straight for the group of roisterers, who scattered away, men
+swearing, women screaming.  Throwing back his weight against the reins,
+he brought the stallion to a plunging, snorting, wheeling halt in the
+midst of men and women--a terrifying monster blowing clouds of mist out
+of his nostrils! As they ran he let the brute rear--pulled him over--
+rolled from under him, and lay still, with goat's blood from the broken
+bottle splashed around his face and seeming to flow from his mouth.  One
+woman stooped to look, groped for a purse or anything of value, screamed
+and ran.
+
+"Sextus!" she yelled.  "Sextus who was dining in the white pavilion!"
+
+Sextus crawled among the oleanders.  Presently Norbanus came, hurrying
+out of gloom, accompanied by Cadmus, the slave who had brought from
+Antioch the letter that came from Rome.  They were dragging a body
+between them.  They laid it down exactly where Sextus had fallen from
+the horse.  There was a sickening thwack as Cadmus made the face
+unrecognizable.  Then came the lanky, hurrying figure of Pertinax
+leading a group of people, Cornificia among them--Galen last.
+
+Sextus lay still until all their backs were toward him.  Then he crept
+out of the oleanders and walked along the river-bank in no haste,
+masking his face with a fold of his toga.  He chose a path that wound
+amid the shrubbery, where marble satyrs grinned in colored lantern
+light.  He had to avoid couples here and there. A woman followed him,
+laying a hand on his arm;  he struck her, and she ran off, screaming for
+her bully.
+
+Presently he reached the winding track that led toward the high-road,
+with the gloom of cypresses on either hand and, beyond that, the glow of
+the lights in the caterers' booths.  He was as safe now as if he were
+fifty miles away;  none noticed him except the beggars at the bridges,
+who exposed maimed limbs and whined for charity.  A leper, banking on
+his only stock in trade--the dread men had of his affliction--cursed
+him.
+
+"You waste breath," said Sextus and passed on.  He was smiling to
+himself--sardonically.  "Lepers live by threats--" he thought.
+
+No more than any leper now could he expect protection from society
+beyond what he could force society to yield.  He had no name, for he was
+dead;  that thought amused him.  Suddenly it dawned on him how safe he
+was, since none in Antioch would dare to question the word of Pertinax,
+backed by Galen and all the witnesses whom Pertinax would be sure to
+summon.  He remembered then to protect the honest freedmen who had sent
+him warning--strode to a fire near a caterer's booth and burned the
+letter, stared at by the slaves who warmed their shins around the
+embers.
+
+One of those might have recognized him, in spite of the toga drawn over
+his face.
+
+"If any one should ask which way Maternus went, say I have gone home,"
+he commanded, and strode away into the gloom.
+
+He wondered why he had chosen the name Maternus.  Not even his remotest
+ancestor had borne it, yet it came to his lips as naturally, instantly,
+as if it were his own by right.  But as he walked away it came to mind
+that ten, or possibly twelve, nights ago he and his friends had all been
+talking of a highwayman Maternus, who had robbed the caravans on the
+mountain road from Tarsus.  For the moment that thought scared him.
+Should he change the name?  The slaves by the embers had stared;  they
+showed him respect, but there was a distinct sensation mingled with it--
+hardly to be wondered at!  Where was it he heard--who told him--that
+Maternus had been caught?  He could not remember.
+
+It dawned on him how difficult it is to decide what to do when the old
+familiar conditions and the expectations on which we habitually base
+decisions are all suddenly stripped away.  He understood now how a
+general in the field can fail when suddenly confronted with the unknown.
+Shall he do this, or do that? There was not a habit or a circumstance to
+guide him.  He must choose, the while the gods looked on and laughed!
+
+Maternus.  It was a strange name to adopt, and yet he liked the sound of
+it, nor would it pass out of his mind.  He tried to think of other
+names, but either they had all been borne by slaves, and were
+distasteful, or else by famous men or by his friends, whom he did not
+propose to wrong;  he only had to imagine his case reversed to realize
+how bitterly he would resent it if an outlawed man should take his own
+name and make it notorious.
+
+Yet he perceived that notoriety would be his only refuge, paradox though
+that might be.  As a mere fugitive, anonymous and having no more object
+than to live and avoid recognition, he would soon reach the end of his
+tether;  there was little mercy in the world for men without a home or
+means.  Whether recognized or not, he would become like a hunted animal
+--might, in fact, end as a slave unless he should prefer to prove his
+identity and submit to Commodus's executioners.  Suicide would be
+preferable to that; but it seemed almost as if the gods themselves had
+vetoed self-destruction by providing that roisterer's corpse at the
+critical moment and putting the plan for its use into Galen's wise old
+head.
+
+He must take the field like Spartacus of old;  but he must have a goal
+more definite and more attainable than Spartacus had had. He must avoid
+the mistake that weakened Spartacus, of accepting for the sake of
+numbers any ally who might offer himself.  He would have nothing
+whatever to do with the rabble of runaway slaves, whose only guiding
+impulse would be loot and license, although he knew how easy it would be
+to raise such an army if he should choose to do it.  Out of any hundred
+outlaws in the records of a hundred years, some ninety-nine had come to
+grief through the increasing numbers of their following and lack of
+discipline;  he could think of a dozen who had been betrayed by paid
+informers of the government, posing as friendly brigands.
+
+And besides, he had no intention of adopting brigandry as a profession,
+though he realized that he must make a reputation as a brigand if he
+hoped to be anything else than a helpless fugitive.  As a rebel against
+Commodus it might be possible to raise a good-sized army in a month or
+two, but that would only serve to bring the Roman armies out of camp,
+led by generals eager for cheap victories.  He must be too resourceful
+to be taken by police--too insignificant to tempt the legions out of
+camp.  Brigandry was as distasteful to him and as far beneath his
+dignity as the pursuit of brigands was beneath the dignity of any of
+those Roman generals who owed their rank to Commodus.  For them, as for
+himself, the pettiness of brigandry led nowhither. Only one object
+appealed to them--fame and its perquisites.  Only one object appealed to
+himself:  to redeem his estates and to avenge his father.  That could be
+accomplished only by the death of Commodus:  He laughed, as he thought
+of himself pitted alone against Commodus the deified, mad monster who
+could marshal the resources of the Roman empire!
+
+Such thoughts filled his mind until he reached the lonely cross-road,
+where the narrower, tree-lined road to Daphne met the great main highway
+leading northward over the mountains.  There was the usual row of
+gibbets reared on rising ground against the sky by way of grim reminder
+to slaves and other would-be outlaws that the arm of Rome was long, not
+merciful.  Five of the gibbets were vacant, except for an arm on one of
+them, that swayed in the wind as it hung by a cord from the wrist.  The
+sixth had a man on it--dead.
+
+
+Scylax, who was waiting for him, rode out of the gloom on the mare,
+leading the Cappadocian, and reined in near the gibbet, not quite sure
+yet who it was who strode toward him.  Scared by the stench, the horses
+became difficult to manage.  The leading-rein passed around one of the
+gibbets.  Sextus ran forward to help. The Cappadocian broke the rein and
+Scylax galloped after him.
+
+So Sextus stood alone beside the rough-hewn tree-trunk, to which was
+tied the body of a man who had been dead, perhaps, since sunset.  He had
+not been torn yet by the vultures.  Morbid curiosity--a fellow feeling
+for a victim, as the man might well be, of the same injustice that had
+made an outlaw of himself--impelled Sextus to step closer.  He could not
+see the face, which was drooped forward;  but there was a parchment,
+held spread on a stick, like a sail on a spar, suspended from the man's
+neck by a string.  He snatched it off and held it toward the moon, now
+low on the horizon.  There were only two words, smeared with red paint
+by a forefinger, underneath the official letters S.P.Q.R.:
+
+"Maternus-Latro."
+
+He began to wonder who Maternus might have been, and how he took the
+first step that had led to crucifixion.  It was hard to believe that any
+man would run that risk unless impelled to it by some injustice that had
+changed pride into savagery or else shot off all opportunity for decent
+living.  The cruelty of the form of execution hardly troubled him;  the
+possible injustice of it stirred him to his depths.  He felt a sort of
+superstitious reverence for the victim, increased by the strange
+coincidence that he had made use, without previous reflection, of
+Maternus' name.
+
+Presently he saw Norbanus riding the horse that he himself had ridden
+that afternoon from Antioch to Daphne, followed on a mule by Cadmus, the
+slave who had brought the letter which had pulled the trigger that set
+the catapults of destiny in motion.  Making a wide circuit, they helped
+Scylax catch the Cappadocian.
+
+Norbanus came cantering back.  He was dressed for the road in a brown
+woolen tunic contributed by some one in Pertinax' suite. He shook a bag
+of money.
+
+"Cornificia was generous," he said. "Old Pertinax thought he had done
+well enough by you.  She cried shame on him and threatened to send for
+her jewelry.  So he borrowed money from the priests. You are as dead as
+that."  He looked up at the tortured body of the robber.  "What name
+will you take?  We had better begin to get used to it."
+
+"It is written here," said Sextus, showing him the parchment. But the
+moon had gone down in a smother of silvery cloud; Norbanus could not see
+to read.  "I am Maternus-Latro."
+
+"I was told they had crucified that fellow."
+
+"This is Maternus.  Being dead, he will hardly grudge me the use of his
+name!  However, I will pay him for it.  He shall have fair burial.  Help
+me down with him."
+
+Norbanus beckoned to the slaves, who tied the horses to a near-by tree.
+They sought in the dark for a hole that would do for a grave, since they
+had no burying tools, stumbling on a limestone slab at last, that lay
+amid rank weeds near a tomb hollowed out of the rock that had been
+rifled, very likely, centuries ago. They lowered the already stiffened
+body into it, with a coin in its fingers for Charon's ferry-fare across
+the Styx, then set the heavy slab in place, all four of them using their
+utmost strength.
+
+Then Sextus, having poured a little water from his hollowed hands on to
+the slab, because he had no oil, and having murmured fragments of a
+ritual as old as Rome, bidding the gods of earth and air and the unseen
+re-absorb into themselves what man no longer could perceive or cherish
+or destroy, turned to the two slaves.
+
+"Scylax," he said, "Cadmus--he who was your master is as dead as that
+man we have buried.  I am not Sextus, son of Maximus.  I fare forth like
+a dead man on an unknown road, now being without honor on the lips of
+men.  Nor have I any claim on you, being now an outlaw, whom the law
+would crucify if ill-luck should betray my feet.  Nor can I set you
+free, since all my household doubtless is already confiscated;  ye
+belong by law to whomsoever Commodus may have appointed to receive my
+goods.  Do then at your own risk, of your own will, what seems good to
+you."
+
+Being slaves, they knelt.  He bade them rise.
+
+"We follow you," said Scylax, Cadmus murmuring assent.
+
+"Then the night bear witness!" Sextus turned toward the row of gibbets,
+pointing at them.  "That is the risk we take together. If we escape
+that, you shall not go unrewarded from the fortune I redeem.  Norbanus,
+you accept my leadership?"
+
+Norbanus chuckled.
+
+"I insist on it!" he answered.  He, too, pointed at the row of gibbets.
+"To be frightened will provide us with no armor against destiny!  There
+was little I had to lose;  lo, I have left that for the mice to nibble!
+Let us see what destiny can do to bold men!  Lead on, Sextus!"
+
+
+
+
+IV.  THE GOVERNORS OF ROME AND ANTIOCH
+
+
+
+Dawn was sparkling on the mountain peaks;  the misty violet of half-
+light crept into the passes and the sun already bathed the copper roofs
+of Antioch in gleaming gold above a miracle of greenery and marble.
+Like a sluggish, muddy stream with camel's heads afloat in it, the
+south-bound caravan poured up against the city gate and spread itself to
+await inspection by the tax-gatherers, the governor's representatives
+and the police.  There was a tedious procedure of examination, hindered
+by the swarms of gossipers, the merchants' agents, smugglers, and the
+men to whom the latest news meant livelihood, who streamed out of the
+city gate and mingled with the new-comers from Asia, Bythinia, Pontus,
+Pisidia, Galatia and Cappadocia.
+
+The caravan guards piled their spears and breakfasted apart, their duty
+done.  They had the air of men to whom the constantly repeated marches
+to and fro on the selfsame stage of a mountainous road had grown
+displeasing and devoid of all romance. Two were wounded.  One, with a
+dent in the helmet that hung from his arm by the chin-strap, lay leaning
+against a rock;  refused food, and slowly bled to death, his white face
+almost comically disappointed.
+
+A military tribune, followed by a slave with tablets, and by a mounted
+trooper for the sake of his official dignity, rode out from the city and
+took the report from the guards' decurion, a half-breed Dacian-Italian,
+black-bearded and taciturn, who dictated it to the slave in curt,
+staccato sentences, grudging the very gesture that he made toward the
+wounded men.  The tribune glanced at the report, signed it, turned his
+horse and rode into the city, disregarding the decurion's salute, his
+military cloak a splash of very bright red, seen against the limestone
+and above the predominant brown of the camels and coats of their owners.
+He cantered his horse when he passed through the gate, and there went up
+a clamor of newsy excitement behind him as group after group loosed
+tongues in competition of exaggeration.
+
+Being bad, the news spread swiftly.  The quadruple lines of columns all
+along the Corso, as the four-mile-long main thoroughfare was called,
+began to look like pier-piles in a flowing tide of men.  Yellow, blue,
+red, striped and parti-colored costumes, restless as the flotsam on a
+mill-race, swirled into patterns, and broke, and reblended.  The long
+portico of Caesar's baths resounded to the hollow hum of voices.
+Streaming lines of slaves in the midst of the street were delayed by the
+crowd, and abused for obstructing it.  Gossip went up like the voice of
+the sea to the cliffs and startled clouds of spray-white pigeons,
+faintly edged with pink against an azure sky;  then ceased as suddenly.
+The news was known.   Whatever Antioch knew, bored it.  Nine days'
+wonders were departed long ago into the limbo of the days of Xerxes.
+Nine hours had come to be the limit of men's interest--nine minutes the
+crucial phase of excitement, during which the balance of emotion hovered
+between rioting or laughter.
+
+Antioch grew quiet, conscious of the sunny weather and the springtime
+lassitude that is a luxury to masters but that slaves must overcome.
+The gangs went forth to clear the watercourses in advance of floods,
+whips cracking to inspire zeal.  Wagon-loads of flowers, lowing milk-
+white oxen, white goats--even a white horse, a white ass--oil and wine
+in painted carts, whose solid wooden wheels screamed on their axles like
+demons in agony-threaded the streets to the temples, lest the gods
+forget convenience and send the floods too soon.
+
+The Forum--gilt-edged marble, tinted statuary, a mosaic pavement like a
+rich-hued carpet from the looms of Babylon--began to overflow with
+leisured men of business.  Their slaves did all the worrying.  The
+money-changers' clerks sat by the bags of coin, with scales and shovel
+and the tables of exchange.  The chaffering began in corn-shops, where
+the lawless agreements for delivery of unsown harvests changed hands ten
+times in the hour, and bills on Rome, scrawled over with endorsements,
+outsped currency as well as outwitted the revenue men.  No tax-farmer's
+slave could keep track of the flow of intangible wealth when the bills
+for a million sesterces passed to and fro like cards in an Egyptian
+game.  Men richer than the fabled Croesus carried all their wealth in
+leather wallets in the form of mortgages on gangs of slaves,
+certificates of ownership of cargoes, promises to pay and contracts for
+delivery of merchandise.
+
+Nine-tenths of all the clamor was the voice of slaves, each one of them
+an expert in his master's business and often richer than the owners of
+the men he dealt with, saving his peculium--the personal savings which
+slaves were sometimes encouraged to accumulate--to buy his freedom when
+a more than usually profitable deal should put his master in a good
+mood.
+
+The hall of the basilica was almost as much a place of fashion as the
+baths of Julius Caesar, except that there were some admitted into the
+basilica whose presence, later in the day, within the precincts of the
+baths would have led to a riot.  Whoever had wealth and could afford to
+match wits with the sharpest traders in the world might enter the
+basilica and lounge amid the statuary.  Thither well dressed slaves came
+hurrying with contracts and the news of changing prices.  There, on
+marble benches, spread with colored cushions, at the rear under the
+balcony, the richer men of business sat chattering to mask their real
+thoughts--Jews, Alexandrians, Athenians--a Roman here and there,
+cupidity more frankly written on his face, his eyes a little harder and
+less subtle, more abrupt in gesture and less patient with delays.
+
+
+"That is a tale which is all very well for the slaves to believe, and
+for the priests, if they wish, to repeat.  As for me, I was born in
+Tarsus, where no man in his senses believes anything except a bill of
+sale."
+
+"But I tell you, Maternus was scourged, and then crucified at the place
+of execution nearest to where he committed his last crime. That is,
+where the crossroad leads to Daphne.  There is no doubt about that
+whatever.  He was nearly four days dying, and the sentries stood guard
+over him until he ceased to breathe, a little after sunset yesterday
+evening.  So they say, at all events.  A little before midnight, in
+Daphne, near one of those booths where the caterers prepare hot meals, a
+man strode up to where some slaves were seated around a fire.  He burned
+a piece of parchment.  All nine slaves agree that he was about Maternus'
+height and build;  that he strode like a man who had been hurt; that he
+had mud and grass stains on his knees, and covered his face with a toga.
+They also swear he said he was Maternus, and that he was gone before
+they could recover their wits.  They say his voice was sepulchral.  One
+of the slaves, who can read, declares that the words on the parchment he
+burned were "Maternus Latro," and that it was the identical parchment he
+had seen hanging from Maternus' neck on the cross.  They tortured that
+slave at once, of course, to get the truth out of him, and on the rack
+he contradicted himself at least a dozen times, so they whipped him and
+let him go, because his owner said he was a valuable cook;  but the fact
+remains that the story hasn't been disproved.
+
+"And there is absolutely no doubt whatever about this:  The caravan from
+Asia came in just a little after dawn, having traveled the last stage by
+night, as usual, in order to arrive early and get the formalities over
+with.  They came past the place of execution before sunrise.  They had
+heard the news of the execution from the north-bound caravan that passed
+them in the mountains.  They had all been afraid of Maternus because he
+had robbed so many wayfarers, so naturally they were interested to see
+his dead body.  It was gone!"
+
+"What of it?  Probably the women took it down for burial. Robbers always
+have a troupe of women.  Maternus never had to steal one, so they say.
+They flocked to him like Bacchanalians."
+
+"No matter.  Now listen to this:  between the time when they learned of
+Maternus' execution and their passing the place of execution that is to
+say at the narrowest part of the pass, where it curves and begins to
+descend on this side of the mountain--they were attacked by robbers who
+made use of Maternus' war-cry. The robbers were beaten off, although
+they wounded two men of the guard and got away with half-a-dozen horses
+and a slave-girl."
+
+"That means nothing--Pardon me a moment while I see what my man has been
+doing.  What is it, Stilchio?  Are you mad?  You have contracted to
+deliver fifty bales at yesterday's price?  You want to ruin me?  Oh.
+You are quite sure?  Very well:  A good man, that--went out and met the
+caravan--bought low--sold high, and the price is falling.  But as I was
+saying, your story is simply a string of coincidences.  All the robbers
+use Maternus' war-cry, because of the terror his name inspires;  they
+probably had not heard he had been crucified."
+
+"Well, that was what the caravan folk thought, until they passed the
+place of execution and saw no body there."
+
+"The robbers possibly themselves removed it and were seeking to avenge
+Maternus."
+
+"Much more likely somebody was bribed to let him escape!  We all know
+Maternus was scourged, for that was done in Antioch;  but they did not
+scourge him very badly, for fear he might die on the way to the place of
+execution.  There is no doubt he was crucified, but he was only tied,
+not nailed.  It would have been perfectly simple to substitute some
+other criminal that first night--somebody who looked a little like him;
+they would give the substitute poppy juice to keep him from crying out
+to passers-by."
+
+"Substitution has often been done, of course.  But it takes a lot of
+money and considerable influence to bribe the guard.  They are under the
+authority of a centurion, who would have to look out for informers.  And
+besides, you can't persuade me that a man who had been scourged, and
+crucified, if only for one day, could walk into Daphne two or three
+nights afterward and carry on a conversation.  Why should he visit
+Daphne?  Why should he choose that place, of all places in the world,
+and midnight, to destroy the identification parchment?  Having destroyed
+it, why did he then tell the slaves who he was?  It sounds like a tale
+out of Egypt to me."
+
+"Well, the priests are saying--"
+
+"Tchutt-tchutt!  Priests say anything."   "Nevertheless, the priests are
+saying that Maternus, after he was captured, managed to convey a message
+to his followers commanding them to offer sacrifices to Apollo, who
+accordingly intervened in his behalf. And they say he undoubtedly went
+to Daphne to return thanks at the temple threshold."
+
+"Hah-Hah!  Excellent!  Let us go to the baths.  You need to sweat the
+superstition out of you!  Better leave word where we are going, so that
+our factors will know where to find us in case any important business
+turns up."
+
+
+In the palace, in the office of the governor, where the lapping of water
+and irises could be heard through the opened windows, Pertinax sat
+facing the governor of Antioch across a table heaped with parchment
+rolls.  A dozen secretaries labored in the next room, but the door
+between was closed;  the only witnesses were leisurely, majestic swans,
+seen down a vista of well pruned shrubbery that flanked the narrow lawn.
+An awning crimsoned and subdued the sunlight, concealing the lines on
+the governor's face and suggesting color on his pale cheeks.
+
+He was a fat man, pouched under the eyes and growing bald--an almost
+total contrast to the lean and active, although older Pertinax.  His
+smile was cynical.  His mouth curved downward.  He had large, fat hands
+and cold, dark calculating eyes.
+
+"I would feel more satisfied," he said, "if I could have Norbanus'
+evidence."
+
+"Find him then!" Pertinax answered irritably.  "What is the matter with
+your police?  In Rome, if I propose to find a man he is brought before
+me instantly."
+
+"This is not Rome," said the governor, "as you would very soon discover
+if you occupied my office.  I sent a lictor and a dozen men to Norbanus'
+house, but he is missing and has not been seen, although it is known,
+and you admit, that he dined with you last night at Daphne.  He has no
+property worth mentioning.  His house is under lien to money-lenders.
+He is well known to have been Sextus' friend, and the moment this order
+arrived proscribing Sextus I added to it the name of Norbanus in my own
+handwriting, on the principle that treason keeps bad company.
+
+"My own well known allegiance to the emperor obliges me to tear out the
+very roots of treason at the first suggestion of its presence in our
+midst.  I have long suspected Sextus, who was a cross-grained,
+obstinate, quick-witted, proud young man--a lot too critical.  I am
+convinced now that he and Norbanus were hatching some kind of plot
+between them--possibly against the sacred person of our emperor--a
+frightful sacrilege!--the suggestion of it makes me shudder!  There is,
+of course, no doubt about Sextus;  the emperor's own proscription brands
+him as a miscreant unfit to live, and he was lucky to have died by
+accident instead of being torn apart by tongs.  It seems to me
+unquestionable that Norbanus shared his guilt and took care to escape
+before he could be seized and brought to justice.  What is in doubt,
+most noble Pertinax, is how you can excuse yourself to our sacred
+emperor for having let Sextus escape from your clutches, after you had
+seen that letter!  How can you excuse yourself for not pouncing the
+letter, to be used as evidence against rascally freedmen who forewarned
+the miscreant Sextus about the emperor's intentions?--and for not
+realizing that Norbanus was undoubtedly in league with him?  How can you
+explain your having let Norbanus get away is something I confess I am
+unable to imagine."
+
+"Conjure your imagination!" Pertinax retorted.  "I am to inquire into
+the suitability of Antioch or Daphne as the site of the Olympic games
+that the emperor proposed to preside over in person.  You can imagine, I
+suppose, how profitable that would be for Antioch--and you.  Am I to
+tell the emperor that robbers in the mountains and the laxity of local
+government make the selection of Antioch unwise?"
+
+They stared at each other silently across the table, Pertinax erect and
+definite, the governor of Antioch indefinite and stroking his chin with
+fat, white fingers.
+
+"It would be simplest," said the governor of Antioch at last, "to have
+Norbanus executed."
+
+"Some one should always be executed when the emperor signs proscription
+lists!" said Pertinax.  "Has it ever occurred to you to wonder how many
+soldiers in the legions in the distant provinces were certified as dead
+before they left Rome?"
+
+The governor of Antioch smiled meanly.  He resented the suggestions that
+there might be tricks he did not understand.
+
+"I have a prisoner," he said, "who might be Norbanus.  He has been
+tortured.  He refused to identify himself."
+
+"Does he look like him?"
+
+"That would be difficult to say.  He broke into a jeweler's and was very
+badly beaten by the slaves, who slashed his face, which is heavily
+bandaged.  He appears to be a Roman and is certainly a thief, but beyond
+that--"
+
+"Much depends on who is interested in him," Pertinax suggested. "Usually
+a man's relatives--"
+
+But the governor of Antioch's fat hand made a disparaging careless
+gesture.  "He has no friends.  He has been in the carceres (the cells in
+which prisoners were kept who had been sentenced to death.  Under Roman
+law there was practically no imprisonment for crime.  Fines, flogging,
+banishment were the substitutes for execution.) more than a month.  I
+was reserving him for execution by the lions at the next public games.
+Truth to tell, I had almost forgotten him.  I will write out a warrant
+for Norbanus' execution and it shall be attended to this morning. And by
+the way--regarding the Olympic games--"
+
+"The emperor, I think, would like to see them held in Antioch," said
+Pertinax.
+
+
+The merchants strolling to the baths stood curiously for a while to
+watch one of the rapidly increasing sect of Christians, who leaned from
+a balcony over the street and exhorted a polyglot crowd of freedmen,
+slaves and idlers.  He was bearded, brown-skinned from exposure, brown-
+robed, scrawny, vehement.
+
+"Peculiar times!" one merchant said.  "If you and I should cause a crowd
+to gather while we prated about refusal to do homage to the gods--of
+whom mind you, the emperor is one, and not the least--"
+
+"But let us listen," said the other.
+
+The man's voice was resonant.  He used no tricks of oratory such as
+Romans over-valued, and was not too careful in the choice of phrases.
+The Greek idiom he used was unadorned--the language of the market-place
+and harbor-front.  He made his points directly, earnestly, not arguing
+but like a guide to far-off countries giving information:
+
+"Slaves--freedmen--masters--all are equal before God, and on the last
+day all shall rise up from the dead--"
+
+A loiterer heckled him:
+
+"Hah!  The crucified too?--what about Maternus?"
+
+The preacher, throwing up his right hand, snatched at opportunity:
+
+"There were two thieves crucified, one on either hand, as I have told
+you.  To the one was said:  'This day shalt thou be with me in
+paradise';  but to the other nothing.  Nevertheless, all shall rise up
+from the dead on the last day--you, and your friends, and the wise and
+the fools, and the slave and the free--aye, and Maternus also--"
+
+One merchant grinned to the other:
+
+"Yet I think it was on the first night that Maternus rose up! They
+stiffen if they stay a whole night on the cross.  If he could walk to
+Daphne three nights later, he had not been crucified many hours.  Come,
+let us go to the baths before the crowd gets there.  If one is late
+those insolent attendants lose one's clothing, and there is no chance
+whatever of getting a good soft-handed slave to rub one down.  Don't you
+hate to be currycombed by a rascal with corns on his fingers?"
+
+
+
+
+V.  ROME--THE THERMAE OF TITUS
+
+
+
+There were even birds, to fill the air with music.  All the known world,
+and the far-away mysterious lands of which Alexander's followers had
+started legends multiplying centuries ago, had contributed to Rome's
+adornment;  plunder and trade goods drifted through in spite of
+distances.  The city had become the vortex of the energy, virility and
+vice of east and west--a glory of marble and gilded cornices, of domes
+and spires, of costumes, habits, faces, languages--of gorgeousness and
+squalor--license, privilege and rigid formalism--extravagance--and of
+innumerable gods.
+
+There was nobility and love of virtue, cheek by jowl with beastliness,
+nor was it always easy to discover which was which; but the birds sang
+blithely in the cages in the portico, where the long seat was on which
+philosophers discoursed to any one who cared to listen.  The baths that
+the Emperor Titus built were the supreme, last touch of all.  From
+furnaces below-ground, where the whipped slaves sweated in the dark, to
+domed roof where the doves changed hue amid the gleam of gold and
+colored glass, they typified Rome, as the city herself was of the
+essence of the world.
+
+The approach to the Thermae of Titus was blocked by litters, some heavy
+enough to be borne by eight matched slaves and large enough for company.
+Women oftener than men shared litters with friends; then the troupe of
+attendants was doubled;  slaves were in droves, flocks, hordes around
+the building, making a motley sight of it in their liveries, which were
+adaptations of the every-day costumes of almost all the countries of the
+known world.
+
+Under the entrance portico, between the double row of marble columns,
+sat a throng of fortune-tellers of both sexes, privileged because the
+aedile of that year had superstitious leanings, but as likely as not to
+be driven away, and even whipped, when the next man should succeed to
+office.  In and out among the crowd ran tipsters, touts for gambling
+dens and sellers of charms;  most of them found ready customers among
+the slaves, who had nothing to do but wait, and stare, and yawn until
+their masters came out from the baths.  They were raw, inexperienced
+slaves who had not a coin or two to spend.
+
+Within the entrance of the Thermae was a marble court, where better
+known philosophers discoursed on topics of the day, each to his own
+group of admirers.  A Christian, dressed like any other Roman, held one
+corner with a crowd around him.  There was a tremendous undercurrent of
+reaction against the prevalent cynical materialism and the vortex of
+fashion was also the cauldron of new aspirations and the battle-ground
+of wits.
+
+Beyond the inner entrance were the two disrobing rooms--women to the
+left, men to the right where slaves, whose insolence had grown into a
+cultivated art, exchanged the folded garments for a bracelet with a
+number.  Thence, stark-naked, through the bronze doors set in green-
+veined marble, bathers passed into the vast frigidarium, whose marble
+plunge was surrounded by a mosaic promenade beneath a bronze and marble
+balcony.
+
+There men and women mingled indiscriminately, watching the divers,
+conversing, matching wits, exchanging gossip, some walking briskly
+around the promenade while others lounged on the marble seats that were
+interspaced against the wall between the statues.
+
+There was not one gesture of indecency.  A man who had stared at a woman
+would have been thrown out, execrated and forever more refused
+admission.  But out in the street, where the litter-bearers and
+attendants whiled away the time, there were tales told that spread to
+the ends of the earth.
+
+
+On a bench of black marble, between two statues of the Grecian Muses,
+Pertinax sat talking with Bultius Livius, sub-prefect of the palace.
+They were both pink-skinned from plunging in the pool, and the white
+scars, won in frontier wars, showed all the more distinctly. Boltius
+Livius was a clean-shaven, sharp-looking man with a thin-lipped air of
+keenness.
+
+"This dependence on Marcia can easily be overdone," he remarked. His
+eyes moved restlessly left and right.  He lowered his voice. "Nobody
+knows how long her hold over Caesar will last.  She owns him at present
+owns him absolutely--owns Rome.  He delights in letting her revoke his
+orders;  it's a form of self-debauchery; he does things purposely to
+have her overrule him.  But that has already lasted longer than I
+thought it would."
+
+"It will last as long as she and her Christians spy for him and make
+life pleasant," said Pertinax.
+
+"Exactly.  But that is the difficulty," Livius answered, moving his eyes
+again restlessly.  There was not much risk of informers in the Thermae,
+but a man never knew who his enemies were. "Marcia represents the
+Christians, and the idiots won't let well enough alone.  By Hercules,
+they have it all their own way, thanks to Marcia.  They are allowed to
+hold their meetings.  All the statutes against them are ignored.  They
+even go unpunished if they don't salute Caesar's image!  They are
+allowed to preach against slavery.  It has got so now that if a man
+condemned to death pretends he is a Christian they're even allowed to
+rescue him out of the carceres!  That's Juno's truth:  I know of a dozen
+instances.  But it's the old story:  Put a beggar on a horse and he will
+demand your house next.  There's no satisfying them.  I am told they
+propose to abolish the gladiatorial combats!  Laugh if you like.  I have
+it from unquestionable sources.  They intend to begin by abolishing the
+execution of criminals in the arena. Shades of Nero!  They keep after
+Marcia day and night to dissuade Caesar from taking part in the
+spectacles, on the theory that he helps to make them popular."
+
+"What do they propose to substitute in popular esteem?" asked Pertinax.
+
+"I don't know.  They're mad enough for anything, and their hold over
+Marcia is beyond belief.  The next thing you'll know, they'll persuade
+her it's against religion to be Caesar's mistress!  They're quite
+capable of sawing off the branch they're sitting on.  By Hercules, I
+hope they do it!  Some of us might go down in the scramble, but--"
+
+"Does Marcia give Christian reasons to the emperor?" asked Pertinax, his
+forehead puzzled.
+
+"No, no.  No, by Hercules. No, no.  Marcia is as skillful at managing
+Commodus as he is at hurling a javelin or driving horses.  She talks
+about the dignity of Caesar and the glory of Rome--uses truth adroitly
+for her own ends--argues that if he continues to keep company with
+gladiators and jockeys, and insists on taking part in the combats, Rome
+may begin to despise him."
+
+"Rome does!" murmured Pertinax, his eyes and lips suggesting a mere
+flicker of a smile.  "But only let Commodus once wake up to the fact
+and--"
+
+Bultius Livius nodded.
+
+"He will return the compliment and show us how to despise at wholesale,
+eh?  Marcia's life and yours and mine wouldn't be worth an hour's
+purchase.  The problem is, who shall warn Marcia? She grows intolerant
+of friendly hints.  I made her a present the other day of eight matched
+German' litter-bearers--beauties--they cost a fortune--and I took the
+opportunity to have a chat with her.  She told me to go home and try to
+manage my own wife! Friendly enough--she laughed--she meant no enmity;
+but shrewd though she is, and far-seeing though she is, the wine of
+influence is going to her head.  You know what that portends. Few men,
+and fewer women, can drink deeply of that wine and--"
+
+"She comes," said Pertinax.
+
+There was a stir near the bronze door leading to the women's disrobing
+hall.  Six women in a group were answering greetings, Marcia in their
+midst, but no man in the Thermae looked at them a moment longer than was
+necessary to return the wave of the hand with which Marcia greeted every
+one before walking down the steps into the plunge.  She did not even
+wear the customary bracelet with its numbered metal disk;  not even the
+attendants at the Thermae would presume to lose the clothing of the
+mistress of the emperor.  Commodus, who at the age of twelve had flung a
+slave into the furnace because the water was too hot, would have made
+short work of any one who mislaid Marcia's apparel.
+
+She did not belie her reputation.  It was no wonder that the sculptors
+claimed that every new Venus they turned out was Marcia's portrait.  Her
+beauty, as her toes touched water, was like that of Aphrodite rising
+from the wave.  The light from the dome shone golden on her brown hair
+and her glossy skin.  She was a thing of sensuous delight, incapable of
+coarseness, utterly untouched by the suggestion of vulgarity, and yet--
+
+"It is strange she should take up with fancy religions," said Pertinax
+under his breath.
+
+She was pagan in every gesture, and not a patrician.  That was
+indefinable but evident to trained eyes.  Neither he, who knew her
+intimately, nor the newest, newly shaven son of a provincial for the
+first time exploring the wonders of Rome, could have imagined her as
+anything except a rich man's mistress.
+
+She plunged into the pool and swam like a mermaid, her companions
+following, climbed out at the farther end, where the diving-boards
+projected in tiers, one above the other, and passed through a bronze
+door into the first of the sweating rooms, evidently conscious of the
+murmur of comment that followed her, but taking no overt notice of it.
+
+"Who is to be the next to try to reason with her--you?" asked Boltius
+Livius.
+
+"No, not I.  I have shot my bolt," said Pertinax and closed his eyes, as
+if to shut out something from his memory--or possibly to banish thoughts
+he did not relish.  There came a definite, hard glint into Livius's
+eyes;  he had a name for being sharper to detect intrigue and its
+ramifications than even the sharp outline of his face would indicate.
+
+"You have heard of her latest indiscretion?" he asked, narrowly watching
+Pertinax.  "There is a robber at large, named Maternus--you have heard
+of him?  The man appears and disappears.  Some say he is the same
+Maternus who was crucified near Antioch at about the time when you were
+there;  some say he isn't.  He is reported to visit Rome in various
+disguises, and to be able to conduct himself so well that he can pass
+for a patrician.  Some say he has a large band;  some say, hardly any
+followers.  Some say it was he who robbed the emperor's own mail a month
+ago.  He is reported to be here, there, everywhere;  but there came at
+last reliable information that he lives in a cave in the woods on an
+estate that fell to the fiscus (the government department into which all
+payments were made, corresponding roughly to a modern treasury
+department) at the time when Maximus and his son Sextus were
+proscribed."
+
+Pertinax looked bored. He yawned.
+
+"I think I will go in and sweat a while," he remarked.
+
+"Not yet.  Let me finish," said Livius.  "It was reported to Caesar that
+the highwayman Maternus lives in a cave on this Aventine estate, and
+that the slaves and tenants on the place, who, of course, all passed to
+the new owner when the estate was sold, not only tolerate him but supply
+him with victuals and news.  Caesar went into one of his usual frenzies,
+cursed half the senators by name, and ordered out a cohort from a legion
+getting ready to embark at Ostia.  He ordered them to lay waste the
+estate, burn all the woods and if necessary torture the slaves and
+tenants, until they had Maternus.  Dead or alive, they were not to dare
+to come without him, and meanwhile the rest of the legion was kept
+waiting at Ostia, with all the usual nuisance of desertions and
+drunkenness and what not else."
+
+"Everybody knows about that," said Pertinax.  "As governor of Rome it
+was my duty to point out to the emperor the inconvenience of keeping
+that legion waiting under arms so near the city.  I was snubbed for my
+pains, but I did my duty."
+
+"Your duty?  There were plenty of people more concerned than you," said
+Livius, looking again as if he thought he had detected an intrigue.
+"There were the Ostian authorities, for instance, but I did not hear of
+their complaining."
+
+"Naturally not," said Pertinax, suppressing irritation.  "Every day the
+legion lingered there meant money for the enterprising city fathers.  I
+am opposed to all the petty pouching of commissions that goes on."
+
+"Doubtless.  Being governor of Rome, you naturally--"
+
+"I have heard of peculations at the palace," Pertinax interrupted.
+
+"Be that as it may, Commodus ordered out the cohort, sent it marching
+and amused himself inventing new ingenious torments for Maternus.
+Alternatively, he proposed to himself to have the cohort slaughtered in
+the arena, officers and all, if they should fail of their mission;  so
+it was safe to wager they were going to bring back some one said to be
+Maternus, whether or not they caught the right man.  Commodus was
+indulging in one of his storms of imperial righteousness.  He was going
+to stamp out lawlessness.  He was going to make it safe for any one to
+come or go along the Roman roads.  Oh, he was in a fine Augustan mood.
+It wasn't safe for any one but Marcia to come within a mile of him.
+Scowl--you know that scowl of his--it freezes the very sentries on the
+wall if he looks at their backs through the window!  I don't suppose
+there was a woman in Rome just then who would have cared to change
+places with Marcia!  He sent for her, and half the palace betted she was
+ripe for banishment to one of those island retreats where Crispina (the
+wife of Commodus who was banished to the isle of Capreae and there
+secretly put to death) lived less than a week!  But Marcia is fertile of
+surprises.  She won't surprise me if she outlives Commodus--by Hercules,
+she won't surprise me if--"
+
+He stared at Pertinax with impudently keen eyes.  Pertinax looked at the
+bronze door leading to the sweating room, shrugging himself as if the
+frigidarium had grown too cool for comfort.
+
+"Marcia actually persuaded Commodus to countermand the order!" Livius
+said, emphasizing each word.  "Almighty Jove can only guess what
+argument she used, but if Maternus had been one of her pet Christians
+she couldn't have saved him more successfully. Commodus sent a messenger
+post-haste that night to recall the cohort."
+
+"And a good thing too," Pertinax remarked.  "It isn't a legion's
+business to supply cohorts to do the work of the district police. There
+were five thousand raw men on the verge of mutiny in Ostia--"
+
+"And--wait a minute--and," said Livius, "don't go yet--this is
+interesting:  Marcia, that same night, sent a messenger of her own to
+find Maternus and to warn him."
+
+"How do you know?" Pertinax let a sign of nervousness escape him.
+
+"In the palace, those of us who value our lives and our fortunes make it
+a business to know what goes on," Livius answered with a dry laugh,
+"just as you take care to know what goes on in the city, Pertinax."
+
+The older man looked worried.
+
+"Do you mean it is common gossip in the palace?" he demanded.
+
+"You are the first man I have spoken with.  There are therefore only
+three who know, if you count the slave whom Marcia employed; four if you
+count Marcia.  I had the great good luck not long ago to catch that
+slave in flagrante delicto--never mind what he was doing;  that is
+another story altogether--and he gave me an insight into a number of
+useful secrets.  The point is, that particular slave takes care not to
+run errands nowadays without informing me.  There is not much that
+Marcia does that I don't know about."  Livius' eyes suggested gimlets
+boring holes into Pertinax's face.  Not a change of the other's
+expression escaped him.  Pertinax covered his mouth with his hand,
+pretending to yawn.  He slapped his thighs to suggest that his
+involuntary shudder was due to having sat too long.  But he did not
+deceive Livius.  "It is known to me," said Livius, "that you and Marcia
+are in each other's confidence."
+
+"That makes me doubt your other information," Pertinax retorted. "No man
+can jump to such a ridiculous conclusion and call it knowledge without
+making me doubt him on all points.  You bore me, Livius.  I have
+important business waiting;  I must make haste into the sweating room
+and get that over with."
+
+But Livius' sharp, nervous laugh arrested him.
+
+"Not yet, friend Pertinax!  Let Rome wait!  Rome's affairs will outlive
+both of us.  I suspect you intend to tell Marcia to have my name
+included in the next proscription list!  But I am not quite such a
+simpleton as that.  Sit down and listen.  I have proof that you plotted
+with the governor of Antioch to have an unknown criminal executed in
+place of a certain Norbanus, who escaped with your connivance and has
+since become a follower of the highwayman Maternus.  That involves you
+rather seriously, doesn't it!  You see, I made sure of my facts before
+approaching you.  And now--admit that I approached you tactfully!  Come,
+Pertinax, I made no threats until you let me see I was in danger. I
+admire you.  I regard you as a brave and an honorable Roman.  I propose
+that you and I shall understand each other.  You must take me into
+confidence, or I must take steps to protect myself."
+
+There was a long pause while a group of men and women came and chattered
+near by, laughing while one of the men tried to win a wager by climbing
+a marble pillar.  Pertinax frowned.  Livius did his best to look
+dependable and friendly, but his eyes were not those of a boon
+companion.
+
+"You are incapable of loyalty to any one except yourself," said Pertinax
+at last.  "What pledge do you propose to offer me?"
+
+"A white bull to Jupiter Capitolinus!  I am willing to go with you to
+the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and to swear on the altar whatever
+solemn oath you wish."
+
+Pertinax smiled cynically.
+
+"The men who slew Julius Caesar were under oath to him," he remarked.
+"Most solemn oaths they swore, then turned on one another like a pack of
+wolves!  Octavian and Anthony were under oath;  and how long did that
+last?  My first claim to renown was based on having rewon the allegiance
+of our troops in Britain, who had broken the most solemn oath a man can
+take--of loyalty to Rome.  An oath binds nobody.  It simply is an
+emphasis of what a man intends that minute.  It expresses an emotion.  I
+believe the gods smile when they hear men pledge themselves.  I
+personally, who am far less than a god and far less capable of reading
+men's minds, never trust a man unless I like him, or unless he gives me
+pledges that make doubt impossible."
+
+"Then you don't like me?" asked Livius.
+
+"I would like you better if I knew that I could trust you."
+
+"You shall, Pertinax!  Bring witnesses!  I will commit myself before
+your witnesses to do my part in--"
+
+His restless eyes glanced right and left.  Then he lowered his voice.
+
+"--in bringing about the political change you contemplate."
+
+"Let us go to the sweating room," Pertinax answered.  "Keep near me.  I
+will think this matter over.  If I see you holding speech not audible to
+me, with any one--"
+
+"I am already pledged.  You may depend on me," said Livius.  "I trust
+you more because you use caution.  Come."
+
+
+
+
+VI. THE EMPEROR COMMODUS
+
+
+
+The imperial palace was a maze of splendor such as Babylon had never
+seen.  It had its own great aqueducts to carry water for its fountains,
+for the gardens and for the imperial baths that were as magnificent, if
+not so large, as the Thermae of Titus. Palace after palace had been
+wrecked, remodeled and included in the whole, under the succeeding
+emperors, until the imperial quarters on the Palatine had grown into a
+city within a city.
+
+There were barracks for the praetorian guard that lacked not much of
+being a fortress.  Rooms and stairways for the countless slaves were
+like honeycomb cells in the dark foundations.  There were underground
+passages, some of them secret, some notorious, connecting wing with
+wing;  and there was one, for the emperor's private use, that led to the
+great arena where the games were held, so that he might come and go with
+less risk of assassination.
+
+Even temples had been taken over and included within the surrounding
+wall to make room for the ever-multiplying suites of state apartments,
+as each Caesar strove to outdo the magnificence of his predecessor.
+Oriental marble, gold-leaf, exotic trees, silk awnings, fountains, the
+majestic figures of the guards, the bronze doors and the huge height of
+the buildings, awed even the Romans who were used to them.
+
+The throne-room was a place of such magnificence that it was said that
+even Caesar himself felt small in it.  The foreign kings, ambassadors
+and Roman citizens admitted there to audience were disciplined without
+the slightest difficulty;  there was no unseemliness, no haste, no
+crowding;  horribly uncomfortable in the heavy togas that court
+etiquette prescribed, reminded of their dignity by colossal statues of
+the noblest Romans of antiquity, and ushered by magnificently uniformed
+past masters of the art of ceremony, all who entered felt that they were
+insignificant intruders into a golden mystery.  The palace prefect in
+his cloak of cloth of gold, with his ivory wand of office, seemed a high
+priest of eternity;  subprefects, standing in the marble antechamber to
+examine visitors' credentials and see that none passed in improperly
+attired, were keepers of Olympus.
+
+The gilded marble throne was on a dais approached by marble steps,
+beneath a balcony to which a stair ascended from behind a carved screen.
+Trumpets announced the approach of Caesar, who could enter unobserved
+through a door at the side of the dais. From the moment that the trumpet
+sounded, and the guards grew as rigid as the basalt statues in the
+niches of the columned walls, it was a punishable crime to speak or even
+to move until Caesar appeared and was seated.
+
+Nor was Caesar himself an anticlimax.  Even Nero, nerveless in his
+latter days, when self-will and debauchery had pouched his eyes and
+stomach, had possessed the Roman gift of standing like a god.  Vespasian
+and Titus, each in turn, was Mars personified. Aurelius had typified a
+gentler phase of Rome, a subtler dignity, but even he, whose worst
+severity was tempered by the philosophical regret that he could not kill
+crime with kindliness, had worn the imperial purple like Olympus'
+delegate.
+
+Commodus, in the minutes that he spared from his amusements to accept
+the glamor of the throne, was perfect.  Handsomest of all the Caesars,
+he could act his part with such consummate majesty that men who knew him
+intimately half-believed he was a hero after all.  Athletic, muscular
+and systematically trained, his vigor, that was purely physical, passed
+readily for spiritual quality within that golden hall, where the
+resources of the world were all put under tribute to provide a royal
+setting.  He emerged.  He smiled, as if the sun shone.  He observed the
+rolled petitions, greetings, testimonials of flattery from private
+citizens and addresses of adulation from distant cities, being heaped
+into a gilded basket as the silent throng filed by beneath him.  He
+nodded.  Now and then he scowled, his irritation growing as the minutes
+passed.  At each gesture of impatience the subprefects quietly impelled
+the crowd to quicker movement. But at the end of fifteen minutes
+Commodus grew tired of dignity and his ferocious scowl clouded his face
+like a thunderstorm.
+
+"Am I to sit here while the whole world makes itself ridiculous by
+staring at me?" he demanded, in a harsh voice.  It was loud enough to
+fill the throne-room, but none knew whether it was meant for an aside or
+not and none dared answer him.  The crowd continued flowing by, each
+raising his right hand and bowing as he reached the square of carpet
+that was placed exactly in front of Caesar's throne.
+
+Commodus rose to his feet.  All movement ceased then and there was utter
+silence.  For a moment he stood scowling at the crowd, one hand resting
+on the golden lion's head that flanked the throne.  Then he laughed.
+
+"Too many petitions!" he sneered, pointing at the overflowing basket;
+and in another moment he had vanished through the door behind the marble
+screen.  Met and escorted up the stairs by groups of cringing slaves, he
+reached a columned corridor.  Rich carpets lay on the mosaic floor;
+sunlight, from under;  the awnings of a balcony glorious with potted
+flowers, shone on the colored statuary and the Grecian paintings.
+
+"What are all these women doing?" he demanded.  There were girls, half-
+hidden behind the statues, each one trying, as he passed her, to divine
+his mood and to pose attractively.
+
+"Where is Marcia?  What will she do to me next?  Is this some new scheme
+of hers to keep me from enjoying my manhood?  Send them away!  The next
+girl I catch in the corridor shall be well whipped.  Where is Marcia?"
+
+Throwing away his toga for a slave to catch and fold he turned between
+gilded columns, through a bronze door, into the antechamber of the royal
+suite.  There a dozen gladiators greeted him as if he were the sun
+shining out of the clouds after a month of rainy weather.
+
+"This is better!" he exclaimed.  "Ho, there, Narcissus!  Ho, there,
+Horatius!  Ha!  So you recover, Albinus?  What a skull the man has!  Not
+many could take what I gave him and be on their feet again within the
+week!  You may follow me, Narcissus.  But where is Marcia?"
+
+Marcia called to him through the curtained door that led to the next
+room--
+
+"I am waiting, Commodus."
+
+"By Jupiter, when she calls me Commodus it means an argument! Are some
+more of her Christians in the carceres, I wonder?  Or has some new
+highwayman--By Juno's breasts, I tremble when she calls me Commodus!"
+
+The gladiators laughed.  He made a pass at one of them, tripped him,
+scuffled a moment and raised him struggling in the air, then flung him
+into the nearest group, who broke his fall and set him on his feet
+again.
+
+"Am I strong enough to face my Marcia?" he asked and, laughing, passed
+into the other room, where half a dozen women grouped themselves around
+the imperial mistress.
+
+"What now?" he demanded.  "Why am I called Commodus?"
+
+He stood magnificent, with folded arms, confronting her, play-acting the
+part of a guiltless man arraigned before the magistrate.
+
+"O Roman Hercules," she said, "I spoke in haste, you came so much sooner
+than expected.  What woman can remember you are anything but Caesar when
+you smile at her?  I am in love, and being loved, I am--"
+
+"Contriving some new net for me, I'll wager!  Come and watch the new men
+training with the caestus;  I will listen to your plan for ruling me and
+Rome while the sight of a good set-to stirs my genius to resist your
+blandishments!"
+
+"Caesar," she said, "speak first with me alone."  Instantly his manner
+changed.  He made a gesture of impatience.  His sudden scowl frightened
+the women standing behind Marcia, although she appeared not to notice
+it, with the same peculiar trick of seeming not to see what she did not
+wish to seem to see that she had used when she walked naked through the
+Thermae.
+
+"Send your scared women away then," he retorted.  "I trust Narcissus.
+You may speak before him."
+
+Her women vanished, hurrying into another room, the last one drawing a
+cord that closed a jingling curtain.
+
+"Do you not trust me?" asked Marcia.  "And is it seemly, Commodus, that
+I should speak to you before a gladiator?"
+
+"Speak or be silent!" he grumbled, giving her a black look, but she did
+not seem to notice it.  Her genius--the secret of her power--was to seem
+forever imperturbable and loving.
+
+"Let Narcissus bear witness then;  since Caesar bids me, I obey! Again
+and again I have warned you, Caesar.  If I were less your slave and more
+your sycophant I would have tired of warning you. But none shall say of
+Marcia that her Caesar met Nero's fate, whose women ran away and left
+him.  Not while Marcia lives shall Commodus declare he has no friends."
+
+"Who now?" he demanded angrily.  "Get me my tablet!  Come now, name me
+your conspirators and they shall die before the sun sets!"
+
+When he scowled his beauty vanished, his eyes seeming to grow closer
+like an ape's.  The mania for murder that obsessed him tautened his
+sinews.  Cheeks, neck, forearms swelled with knotted strength.
+Ungovernable passion shook him.
+
+"Name them!" he repeated, beckoning unconsciously for the tablet that
+none dared thrust into his hand.
+
+"Shall I name all Rome?" asked Marcia, stepping closer, pressing herself
+against him.  "O Hercules, my Roman Hercules--does love, that makes us
+women see, put bandages on men's eyes?  You have turned your back upon
+the better part of Rome to--"
+
+"Better part?" He shook her by the shoulders, snorting.  "Liars,
+cowards, ingrates, strutting peacocks, bladders of wind boring me and
+one another with their empty phrases, cringing lick-spittles--they make
+me sick to look at them!  They fawn on me like hungry dogs.  By Jupiter,
+I make myself ridiculous too often, pandering to a lot of courtiers!  If
+they despise me then as I despise myself, I am in a bad way!  I must
+make haste and live again!  I will get the stench of them out of my
+nostrils and the sickening sight of them out of my eyes by watching true
+men fight!  When I slay lions with a javelin, or gladiators--"
+
+"You but pander to the rabble," Marcia interrupted.  "So did Nero.  Did
+they come to his aid when the senate and his friends deserted him?"
+
+"Don't interrupt me, woman!  Senate!  Court!" he snorted.  "I can rout
+the senate with a gesture!  I will fill my court with gladiators!  I can
+change my ministers as often as I please--aye, and my mistress too," he
+added, glaring at her.  "Out with the names of these new conspirators
+who have set you trembling for my destiny!"
+
+"I know none--not yet," she said.  "I can feel, though.  I hear the
+whispers in the Thermae--"
+
+"By Jupiter, then I will close the Thermae."
+
+"When I pass through the streets I read men's faces--"
+
+"Snarled, have they?  My praetorian guard shall show them what it is to
+be bitten!  Mobs are no new things in Rome.  The old way is the proper
+way to deal with mobs!  Blood, corn and circuses, but principally blood!
+By the Dioscuri, I grow weary of your warnings, Marcia!"
+
+He thrust her away from him and went growling like a bear into his own
+apartment, where his voice could be heard cursing the attendants whose
+dangerous duty it was to divine in an instant what clothes he would wear
+and to help him into them.  He came out naked through the door, saw
+Marcia talking to Narcissus, laughed and disappeared again.  Marcia
+raised her voice:
+
+"Telamonion!  Oh, Telamonion!"
+
+A curly-headed Greek boy hardly eight years old came running from the
+outer corridor--all laughter--one of those spoiled favorites of fortune
+whom it was the fashion to keep as pets.  Their usefulness consisted
+mainly in retention of their innocence.
+
+"Telamonion, go in and play with him.  Go in and make him laugh. He is
+bad tempered."
+
+Confident of everybody's good-will, the child vanished through the
+curtains where Commodus roared him a greeting.  Marcia continued talking
+to Narcissus in a low voice.
+
+"When did you see Sextus last?" she asked.
+
+"But yesterday."
+
+"And what has he done, do you say?  Tell me that again."
+
+"He has found out the chiefs of the party of Lucius Septimius Severus.
+He has also discovered the leaders of Pescennius Niger's party.  He
+says, too, there is a smaller group that looks toward Clodius Albinus,
+who commands the troops in Britain."
+
+"Did he tell you names?"
+
+"No.  He said he knew I would tell you, and you might tell Commodus, who
+would write all the names on his proscription list. Sextus, I tell you,
+reckons his own life nothing, but he is extremely careful for his
+friends."
+
+"It would be easy to set a trap and catch him.  He is insolent. He has
+had too much rein," said Marcia.  "But what would be the use?" Narcissus
+answered.  "There would be Norbanus, too, to reckon with.  Each plays
+into the other's hands.  Each knows the other's secrets.  Kill one, and
+there remains the other--doubly dangerous because alarmed.  They take
+turns to visit Rome, the other remaining in hiding with their following
+of freedmen and educated slaves.  They only commit just enough robbery
+to gain themselves an enviable reputation on the countryside.  They
+visit their friends in Rome in various disguises, and they travel all
+over Italy to plot with the adherents of this faction or the other.
+Sextus favors Pertinax--says he would make a respectable emperor--
+another Marcus Aurelius.  But Pertinax knows next to nothing of Sextus'
+doings, although he protects Sextus as far as he can and sees him now
+and then.  Sextus' plan is to keep all three rival factions by the ears,
+so that if anything should happen--" he nodded toward the curtain, from
+behind which came the sounds of childish laughter and the crashing voice
+of Commodus encouraging in some piece of mischief--"they would be all
+at odds and Pertinax could seize the throne."
+
+"I wonder whether I was mad that I protected Sextus!" exclaimed Marcia.
+"He has served us well.  If I had let them catch and crucify him as
+Maternus, we would have had no one to keep us informed of all these
+cross-conspiracies.  But are you sure he favors Pertinax?"
+
+"Quite sure.  He even risked an interview with Flavia Titiana, to
+implore her influence with her husband.  Sextus would be all for
+striking now, this instant;  he has assured himself that the world is
+tired of Commodus, and that no faction is strong enough to stand in the
+way of Pertinax;  but he knows how difficult it will be to persuade
+Pertinax to assert himself.  Pertinax will not hear of murdering Caesar;
+he says:  'Let us see what happens--if the Fates intend me to be Caesar,
+let the Fates show how!'"
+
+"Aye, that is Pertinax!" said Marcia.  "Why is it that the honest men
+are all such delayers!  As for me, I will save my Commodus if he will
+let me.  If not, the praetorian guard shall put Pertinax on the throne
+before any other faction has a chance to move. Otherwise we all die--all
+of us!  Severus--Pescennius Niger--Clodius Albinus--any of the others
+would include us in a general proscription.  Pertinax is friendly.  He
+protects his friends. He is the safest man in all ways.  Let Pertinax be
+acclaimed by all the praetorian guard and the senate would accept him
+eagerly enough.  They would feel sure of his mildness.  Pertinax would
+do no wholesale murdering to wipe out opposition;  he would try to
+pacify opponents by the institution of reforms and decent government."
+
+"You must beware you are not forestalled," Narcissus warned her. "Sextus
+tells me there is more than one man ready to slay Commodus at the first
+chance.  Severus, Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus keep themselves
+informed as to what is going on; their messengers are in constant
+movement.  If Commodus should lift a hand against either of those three,
+that would be the signal for civil war.  All three would march on Rome."
+
+"Caesar is much more likely to learn of the plotting through his own
+informers, and to try to terrify the generals by killing their
+supporters here in Rome," said Marcia.  "What does Sextus intend?  To
+kill Caesar himself?"
+
+Narcissus nodded.
+
+"Well, when Sextus thinks that time has come, you kill him!  Let that be
+your task.  We must save the life of Commodus as long as possible.  When
+nothing further can be done, we must involve Pertinax so that he won't
+dare to back out.  It was he, you know, who persuaded me to save
+Maternus the highwayman's life;  it was he who told me Maternus is
+really Sextus, son of Maximus.  His knowledge of that secret gives me a
+certain hold on Pertinax! Caesar would have his head off at a word from
+me.  But the best way with Pertinax is to stroke the honest side of him
+--the charcoal-burner side of him--the peasant side, if that can be done
+without making him too diffident.  He is perfectly capable of offering
+the throne to some one else at the last minute!"
+
+A step sounded on the other side of the curtain.  "Caesar!" Narcissus
+whispered.  As excuse for being seen in conversation with her he began
+to show her a charm against all kinds of treachery that he had bought
+from an Egyptian.  She snatched it from him.
+
+"Caesar!" she exclaimed, bounding toward Commodus and standing in his
+way.  Not even she dared lay a hand on him when he was in that volcanic
+mood.  "As you love me, will you wear this?"
+
+"For love of you, what have I not done?" he retorted, smiling at her.
+"What now?"
+
+She advanced another half-step, but no nearer.  There was laughter on
+his lips, but in his eye cold cruelty.
+
+"My Caesar, wear it!  It protects against conspiracy."
+
+He showed her a new sword that he had girded on along with the short
+tunic of a gladiator.
+
+"Against the bellyache, use Galen's pills;  but this is the right
+medicine against conspiracy!" he answered.  Then he took the little
+golden charm into his left hand, tossing it on his palm and looked at
+her, still smiling.
+
+"Where did you get this bauble?"
+
+"Not I.  One of those magicians who frequent that Forum sold it to
+Narcissus."
+
+"Bah!"  He flung it through the window.  "Who is the magician? Name him!
+I will have him thrown into the carceres.  We'll see whether the charms
+he sells so cheap are any good!  Or is he a Christian?" he asked,
+sneering.
+
+"The Christians, you know, don't approve of charms," Marcia answered.
+
+"By Jupiter, there's not much that they do approve of!" he retorted.  "I
+begin to weary of your Christians.  I begin to think Nero was right, and
+my father, too!  There was a wisdom in treating Christians as vermin!
+It might not be a bad thing, Marcia, to warn your Christians to procure
+themselves a charm or two against my weariness of their perpetual
+efforts to govern me! The Christians, I suppose, have been telling you
+to keep me out of the arena?  Hence this living statuary in the
+corridor, and all this talk about the dignity of Rome!  Tscharr-rrh!
+There's more dignity about one gladiator's death than in all Rome
+outside the arena!  Woman, you forget you are only a woman.  I remember
+that!  I am a god!  I have the blood of Caesar in my veins.  And like
+the unseen gods, I take my pleasure watching men and women die!  I loose
+my javelins like thunderbolts--like Jupiter himself!  Like Hercules--"
+
+He paused.  He noticed Marcia was laughing.  Only she, in all the Roman
+empire, dared to mock him when he boasted.  Not even she knew why he let
+her do it.  He began to smile again, the frightful frown that rode over
+his eyes dispersing, leaving his forehead as smooth as marble.
+
+"If I should marry you and make you empress," he said, "how long do you
+think I should last after that?  You are clever enough to rule the fools
+who squawk and jabber in the senate and the Forum. You are beautiful
+enough to start another siege of Troy!  But remember:  You are Caesar's
+concubine, not empress!  Just remember that, will you!  When I find a
+woman lovelier than you, and wiser, I will give you and your Christians
+a taste of Nero's policy.  Now--do you love me?"
+
+"If I did not, could I stand before you and receive these insults?" she
+retorted, trusting to the inspiration of the moment;  for she had no
+method with him.
+
+"I would willingly die," she said, "if you would give the love you have
+bestowed on me to Rome instead, and use your godlike energy in ruling
+wisely, rather than in killing men and winning chariot races.  One
+Marcia does not matter much.  One Commodus can--"
+
+"Can love his Marcia!" he interrupted, with a high-pitched laugh. He
+seized her, nearly crushing out her breath.  "A Caius and a Caia we have
+been!  By Jupiter, if not for you and Paulus I would have left Rome long
+ago to march in Alexander's wake!  I would have carved me a new empire
+that did not stink so of politicians!"
+
+He strode into the anteroom where all the gladiators waited and
+Narcissus had to follow him--well named enough, for he was lithe and
+muscular and beautiful, but, nonetheless, though taller, not to be
+compared with Commodus--even as the women, chosen for their good looks
+and intelligence, who hastened to reappear the moment the emperor's back
+was turned, were nothing like so beautiful as Marcia.
+
+In all the known world there were no two finer specimens of human
+shapeliness than the tyrant who ruled and the woman whose wits and
+daring had so long preserved him from his enemies.
+
+"Come to the arena," he called back to her.  "Come and see how Hercules
+throws javelins from a chariot at full pelt!"
+
+But Marcia did not answer, and he forgot her almost before he reached
+the entrance of the private tunnel through which he passed to the arena.
+She had more accurately aimed and nicely balanced work to do than even
+Commodus could do with javelins against a living target.
+
+
+
+
+VII.  MARCIA
+
+
+
+In everything but title and security of tenure Marcia was empress of the
+world, and she had what empresses most often lack--the common touch.
+She had been born in slavery.  She had ascended step by step to fortune,
+by her own wits, learning by experience. Each layer of society was known
+to her--its virtues, prejudices, limitations and peculiar tricks of
+thought.  Being almost incredibly beautiful, she had learned very early
+in life that the desired (not always the desirable) is powerful to sway
+men;  the possessed begins to lose its sway;  the habit of possession
+easily succumbs to boredom, and then power ceases.  Even Commodus,
+accordingly, had never owned her in the sense that men own slaves;  she
+had reserved to herself self-mastery, which called for cunning, courage
+and a certain ruthlessness, albeit tempered by a reckless generosity.
+
+She saw life skeptically, undeceived by the fawning flattery that Rome
+served up to her, enjoying it as a cat likes being stroked. They said of
+her that she slept with one eye open.
+
+Livius had complained in the Thermae to Pertinax that the wine of
+influence was going to Marcia's head, but he merely expressed the
+opinion of one man, who would have liked to feel himself superior to her
+and to use her for his own ends.  She was not deceived by Livius, or by
+anybody else.  She knew that Livius was keeping watch on her, and how he
+did it, having shrewdly guessed that a present of eight matched litter-
+bearers was too extravagant not to mask ulterior designs.  She watched
+him much more artfully than he watched her.  Her secret knowledge that
+he knew her secret was more dangerous to him than anything that he had
+found out could be dangerous to her.
+
+The eight matched litter-bearers waited with the gilded litter near a
+flight of marble steps that descended from the door of Marcia's
+apartments in the palace to a sunlit garden with a fountain in the
+midst.  There was a crowd of servants and four Syrian eunuchs, sleek
+offensive menials in yellow robes;  two lictors besides, with fasces and
+the Roman civic uniform--a scandalous abuse of ancient ceremony--ready
+to conduct a progress through the city.  But they all yawned.  Marcia
+and her usual companion did not come;  there was delay--and gossip,
+naturally.
+
+A yawning eunuch rearranged the bowknot of his girdle.
+
+"What does she want with Livius?  He usually gets sent for when somebody
+needs punishing.  Who do you suppose has fallen foul of her?"
+
+"Himself!  He sent her messenger back with word he was engaged on palace
+business.  I heard her tell the slave to go again and not return without
+him!  Bacchus!  But it wouldn't worry me if Livius should lose his head!
+For an aristocrat he has more than his share of undignified curiosity--
+forever poking his sharp nose into other people's business.  Marcia may
+have found him out. Let's hope!"
+
+At the foot of the marble stairway, in the hall below Marcia's
+apartment, Livius stood remonstrating, growing nervous.  Marcia, dressed
+in the dignified robes of a Roman matron, that concealed even her ankles
+and suggested the demure, self-conscious rectitude of olden times, kept
+touching his breast with her ivory fan, he flinching from the touch,
+subduing irritation.
+
+"If the question is, what I want with you, Livius, the answer is, that I
+invite you.  Order your litter brought."
+
+"But Marcia, I am subprefect.  I am responsible to--"
+
+"Did you hear?"
+
+"But if you will tell where we are going, I might feel justified in
+neglecting the palace business.  I assure you I have important work to
+do."
+
+"There are plenty who can attend to it," said Marcia.  "The most
+important thing in your life, Livius, is my good-will.  You are delaying
+me."
+
+Livius glared at Caia Poppeia, the lady-in-waiting, who was smiling,
+standing a little behind Marcia.  He hoped she would take the hint and
+withdraw out of earshot, but she had had instructions, and came half a
+step closer.
+
+"Will you let me go back to my office and--"
+
+"No!" answered Marcia.
+
+He yielded with a nervous gesture, that implored her not to make an
+indiscretion.  A subprefect, in the nature of his calling, had too many
+enemies to relish repetition in the palace precincts of a threat from
+Marcia, however baseless it might be.  And besides, it might be
+something serious that almost had escaped her lips. Untrue or true, it
+would be known all over the palace in an hour; within the day all Rome
+would know of it.  There were two slaves by the front door, two more on
+the last step of the stairs.
+
+"I will come, of course," he said.  "I am delighted.  I am honored.  I
+am fortunate!"
+
+She nodded.  She sent one of her own slaves to order his private litter
+brought, while Livius attempted to look comfortable, cudgeling his
+brains to know what mischief she had found out.  It was nothing unusual
+that his litter should follow hers through the streets of Rome;  in
+fact, it was an honor coveted by all officials of the palace, that fell
+to his share rather frequently because of his distinguished air of a
+latter-day man of the world and his intimate knowledge of everybody's
+business and ancestry. He was often ordered to go with her at a moment's
+notice.  But this was the first time she had refused to say where they
+were going, or why, and there was a hint of malice in her smile that
+made his blood run cold.  He was a connoisseur of malice.
+
+Marcia leaned on his arm as she went down the steps to her litter.  She
+permitted him to help her in.  But then, while her companion was
+following through the silken curtains, she leaned out at the farther
+side and whispered to the nearest eunuch. Livius, climbing into his own
+gilt vehicle and lifted shoulder-high by eight Numidians, became aware
+that Marcia's eunuchs had been told to keep an eye on him;  two yellow-
+robed, insufferably impudent inquisitors strode in among his own
+attendants.
+
+An escort of twenty praetorian guards and a decurion was waiting at the
+gate to take its place between the lictors and Marcia's litter, but that
+did not in any way increase Livius' sense of security.  The praetorian
+guard regarded Marcia as the source of its illegal privileges.  It
+looked to her far more than to the emperor for favors, buying them with
+lawless loyalty to her.  She ruined discipline by her support of every
+plea for increased perquisites.  No outraged citizen had any hope of
+redress so long as Marcia's ear could be reached (although Commodus got
+the blame for it).  It was the key to Marcia's system of insurance
+against unforeseen contingencies.  The only regularly drilled and armed
+troops in the city were as loyal to her, secretly and openly, as Livius
+himself was to the principle of cynical self-help.
+
+He began to feel thoroughly frightened, as he told himself that the
+escort and their decurion would swear to any statement Marcia might
+make.  If she had learned that he was in the habit of receiving secret
+information from her slave, there were a thousand ways she might take to
+avenge herself;  a very simple way would be to charge him with improper
+overtures and have him killed by the praetorians--a way that might
+particularly interest her, since it would presumably increase her
+reputation for constancy to Commodus.
+
+The eunuchs watched him.  The lictors and praetorians cleared the way,
+so there were no convenient halts that could enable him to slip
+unnoticed through the crowd.  His own attendants seemed to have divined
+that there was something ominous about the journey, and he was not the
+kind of man whose servants are devotedly attached to him.  He knew it.
+He noticed sullenness already in the answers his servant gave him
+through the litter curtains, when he asked whether the man knew their
+destination.
+
+"None knows.  All I know is, we must follow Marcia."
+
+The slave's voice was almost patronizing.  Livius made up his mind, if
+he should live the day out, to sell the rascal to some farmer who would
+teach him with a whip what service meant.  But he said nothing.  He
+preferred to spring surprises, only hoping he himself might not be
+overwhelmed in one.
+
+By the time they reached Cornificia's house he was in such a state of
+nervousness, and so blanched, that he had to summon his servant into the
+litter to rub cosmetic on his cheeks.  He took one of Galen's famous
+strychnine pills before he could prevent his limbs from trembling.  Even
+so, when he rolled out of the litter and advanced with his courtliest
+bow to escort Marcia into the house, she recognized his fear and mocked
+him:
+
+"You are bilious?  Or has some handsomer Adonis won your Venus from you?
+Is it jealousy?"
+
+He pretended that the litter-bearers needed whipping for having shaken
+him.  It made him more than ever ill at ease that she should mock him
+before all the slaves who grouped themselves in Cornificia's forecourt.
+Hers was one of those houses set back from the street, combining an air
+of seclusion with such elegance as could not possibly escape the notice
+of the passer-by.  The forecourt was adorned with statuary and the gate
+left wide, affording a glimpse of sunlit greenery and marble that
+entirely changed the aspect of the narrow street.  There were never less
+than twenty tradesmen at the gate, imploring opportunity to show their
+wares, which were in baskets and boxes, with slaves squatting beside
+them.  All Rome would know within the hour that Marcia had called on
+Cornificia, and that Livius, the subprefect, had been mocked by Marcia
+in public.
+
+A small crowd gathered to watch the picturesque ceremony of reception--
+Cornificia's house steward marshaling his staff, the brightly colored
+costumes blending in the sunlight with the hues of flowers and the rich,
+soft sheen of marble in the shadow of tall cypresses.  The praetorians
+had to form a cordon in front of the gate, and the street became choked
+by the impeded traffic. Rome loved pageantry;  it filled its eyes before
+its belly, which was nine-tenths of the secret of the Caesar's power.
+
+Within the house, however, there was almost a stoical calm--a sensation
+of cloistered chastity produced by the restraint of ornament and the
+subdued light on gloriously painted frescoes representing evening
+benediction at a temple altar, a gathering of the Muses, sacrifice
+before a shrine of Aesculapius and Jason's voyage to Colchis for the
+Golden Fleece.  The inner court, where Cornificia received her guests,
+was like a sanctuary dedicated to the decencies, its one extravagance
+the almost ostentatious restfulness, accentuated by the cooing of white
+pigeons and the drip and splash of water in the fountain in the midst.
+
+The dignity of drama was the essence of all Roman ceremony.  The
+formalities of greeting were observed as elegantly, and with far more
+evident sincerity, in Cornificia's house than in Caesar's palace.
+Cornificia, dressed in white and wearing very little jewelry, received
+her guests more like an old-time patrician matron than a notorious
+modern concubine.  Her notoriety, in fact, was due to Flavia Titiana,
+rather than to any indiscretions of her own.  To justify her
+infidelities, which were a byword, Pertinax' lawful wife went to
+ingenious lengths to blacken Cornificia's reputation, regaling all
+society with her invented tales about the lewd attractions Cornificia
+staged to keep Pertinax held in her toils.
+
+That Cornificia did exercise a sway over the governor of Rome was
+undeniable.  He worshiped her and made no secret of it.  But she held
+him by a method diametrically contrary to that which rumor, stirred by
+Flavia Titiana, indicated;  Cornificia's house was a place where he
+could lay aside the feverish activities of public life and revel in the
+intellectual and philosophical amusements that he genuinely loved.
+
+But Livius loathed her.  Among other things, he suspected her of being
+in league with Marcia to protect the Christians.  To him she represented
+the idealism that his cynicism bitterly rejected. The mere fact of her
+unshakable fidelity to Pertinax was an offense in his eyes;  she
+presented what he considered an impudent pose of morality, more impudent
+because it was sustained.  He might have liked her well enough if she
+had been a hypocrite, complaisant to himself.
+
+She understood him perfectly--better, in fact, than she understood
+Marcia, whose visits usually led to intricate entanglements for
+Pertinax.  When she had sent the slaves away and they four lay at ease
+on couches in the shade of three exotic potted palms, she turned her
+back toward Livius, suspecting he would bring his motives to the surface
+if she gave him time; whereas Marcia would hide hers and employ a dozen
+artifices to make them undiscoverable.
+
+
+"You have not brought Livius because you think he loves me!" she said,
+laughing.  "Nor have you come, my Marcia, for nothing, since you might
+have sent for me and saved yourself trouble.  I anticipate intrigue!
+What plot have you discovered now?  Is Pertinax its victim?  You can
+always interest me if you talk of Pertinax."
+
+"We will talk of Livius," said Marcia.
+
+Leaning on his elbows, Livius glared at Caia Poppeia, Marcia's
+companion.  He coughed, to draw attention to her, but Marcia refused to
+take the hint.  "Livius has information for us," she remarked.
+
+Livius rose from the couch and came and stood before her, knitting his
+fingers together behind his back, compelling himself to smile.  His
+pallor made the hastily applied cosmetics look ridiculous.
+
+"Marcia," he said, "you make it obvious that you suspect me of some
+indiscretion."
+
+"Never!" she retorted, mocking.  "You indiscreet?  Who would believe it?
+Give us an example of discretion;  you are Paris in the presence of
+three goddesses.  Select your destiny!"
+
+He smiled, attempted to regain his normal air of tolerant importance--
+glanced about him--saw the sunlight making iridescent pools of fire
+within a crystal ball set on the fountain's edge--took up the ball and
+brought it to her, holding it in both hands.
+
+"What choice is there than that which Paris made?" he asked, kneeling on
+one knee, laughing.  "Venus rules men's hearts.  She must prevail.  So
+into your most lovely hands I give my destiny."
+
+"You mean, you leave it there!" said Marcia.  "Could you ever afford to
+ignore me and intrigue behind my back?"
+
+"I am the least intriguing person of your acquaintance, Marcia," he
+answered, rising because the hard mosaic pavement hurt his knee, and the
+position made him feel undignified.  But more than dignity he loved
+discretion;  he wished there were eyes in the back of his head, to see
+whether slaves were watching from the curtained windows opening on the
+inner court.  "It is my policy," he went on, "to know much and say
+little;  to observe much, and do nothing!  I am much too lazy for
+intrigue, which is hard work, judging by what I have seen of those who
+indulge in it."
+
+"Is that why you sacrificed a white bull recently?" asked Marcia.
+
+Livius glanced at Cornificia, but her patrician face gave no hint.  Caia
+Poppeia's was less under control, for she was younger and had nothing to
+conceal;  she was inquisitively enjoying the entertainment and evidently
+did not know what was coming.
+
+"I sacrificed a white bull to Jupiter Capitolinus, as is customary, to
+confirm a sacred oath," he answered.
+
+"Very well, suppose you break the oath!" said Marcia.
+
+He managed to look scandalized--then chuckled foolishly, remembering
+what Pertinax had said about the value of an oath; but his own dignity
+obliged him to protest.
+
+"I am not one of your Christians," he answered, stiffening himself.  "I
+am old-fashioned enough to hold that an oath made at the altar of our
+Roman Jupiter is sacred and inviolable."
+
+"When you took your oath of office you swore to be in all things true to
+Caesar," Marcia retorted.  "Do you prefer to tell Caesar how true you
+have been to that oath?  Which oath holds the first one or the second?"
+
+"I could ask to be released from the second one," said Livius. "If you
+will give me time--"
+
+Marcia's laugh interrupted him.  It was soft, melodious, like wavelets
+on a calm sea, hinting unseen reefs.
+
+"Time," she said, "Is all that death needs!  Death does not wait on
+oaths;  it comes to us.  I wish to know just how far I can trust you,
+Livius."
+
+Nine Roman nobles out of ten in Livius' position would have recognized
+at once the deadliness of the alternatives she offered and, preserving
+something of the shreds of pride, would have accepted suicide as
+preferable.  Livius had no such stamina.  He seized the other horn of
+the dilemma.
+
+"I perceive Pertinax has betrayed me," he sneered, looking sharply at
+Cornificia;  but she was watching Marcia and did not seem conscious of
+his glance.  "If Pertinax has broken his oath, mine no longer binds me.
+This is the fact then:  I discovered how he helped Sextus, son of
+Maximus, to avoid execution by a ruse, making believe to be killed.
+Pertinax was also privy to the execution of an unknown thief in place of
+Norbanus, a friend of Sextus, also implicated in conspiracy.  Pertinax
+has been secretly negotiating with Sextus ever since.  Sextus now calls
+himself Maternus and is notorious as a highwayman."
+
+"What else do you know about Maternus?" Marcia inquired.  There was a
+trace at last of sharpness in her voice.  A hint conveyed itself that
+she could summon the praetorians if he did not answer swiftly.
+
+"He plots against Caesar."
+
+"You know too little or too much!" said Marcia.  "What else?"
+
+He closed his lips tight.  "I know nothing else."
+
+"Have you had any dealings with Sextus?"
+
+"Never."
+
+He was shifting now from one foot to the other, hardly noticeably, but
+enough to make Marcia smile.  "Shall we hear what Sextus has to say to
+that?" asked Cornificia, so confidently that there was no doubt Marcia
+had given her the signal.
+
+Marcia moved her melting, lazy, laughing eyes and Cornificia clapped her
+hands.  A slave came.
+
+"Bring the astrologer."
+
+Sextus must have been listening, he appeared so instantly.  He stood
+with folded arms confronting them, his weathered face in sunlight.
+Pigment was not needed to produce the healthy bronze hue of his skin;
+his curly hair, bound by a fillet, was unruly from the outdoor life he
+had been leading; the strong sinews of his arms and legs belied the ease
+of his pretended calling and the starry cloak he wore was laughable in
+its failure to disguise the man of action.  He saluted the three women
+with a gesture of the raised right hand that no man unaccustomed to the
+use of arms could imitate, then turning slightly toward Livius,
+acknowledged his nod with a humorous grin.
+
+"So we meet again, Bultius Livius."
+
+"Again?" asked Marcia.
+
+"Why yes, I met him in the house of Pertinax.  It is three days since we
+spoke together.  Three, or is it four, Livius?  I have been busy.  I
+forget."
+
+"Can Livius have lied?" asked Marcia.  She seemed to be enjoying the
+entertainment.
+
+Livius threw caution to the winds.
+
+"Is this a tribunal?" he demanded.  "If so, of what am I accused?"  He
+tried to speak indignantly, but something caught in his throat.  The
+cough became a sob and in a moment he was half-hysterical.  "By
+Hercules, what judges!  What a witness!  Is he a two-headed witness who
+shall swear my life away?  I understand you, Marcia!"
+
+(At least two witnesses were necessary under Roman law.)
+
+"You?" she laughed.  "You understand me?"
+
+He recovered something of his self-possession, a wave of virility
+returning.  High living and the feverish excitement of the palace regime
+had ruined his nerves but there were traces still of his original
+astuteness.  He resumed his air of dignity.
+
+"Pardon me," he said.  "I have been overworked of late.  I must see
+Galen about this jumpiness.  When I said I understand you I meant, I
+realize that you are joking.  Naturally you would not receive a
+highwayman in Cornificia's house, and at the same time accuse me of
+treason!  Pray excuse my outburst--set it to the score of ill-health.  I
+will see Galen."
+
+"You shall see him now!" laughed Marcia, and Cornificia clapped her
+hands.
+
+Less suddenly than Sextus had appeared, because his age was beginning to
+tell on him, Galen entered the court through a door behind the palm-
+trees and stood smiling, making his old-world, slow salute to Marcia.
+His bright eyes moved alertly amid wrinkles.  He looked something like
+the statues of the elder Cato, only with a kindlier humor and less
+obstinacy at the corners of the mouth.  Two slaves brought out a couch
+for him and vanished when he had taken his ease on it after fussing a
+little because the sun was in his eyes.
+
+"My trade is to oppose death diplomatically," he remarked.  "I am a poor
+diplomatist.  I only gain a little here and there.  Death wins
+inevitably.  Nevertheless, they only summon me for consultation when
+they hope to gain a year or two for somebody. Marcia, unless you let
+Bultius Livius use that couch he will swoon.  I warn you.  The man's
+heart is weak.  He has more brain than heart," he added.  "How is our
+astrologer?"
+
+He greeted Sextus with a wrinkled grin and beckoned him to share his
+couch.  Sextus sat down and began chafing the old doctor's legs.  Marcia
+took her time about letting Livius be seated.
+
+"You heard Galen?" she asked.  "We are here to cheat death
+diplomatically."
+
+"Whose death?" Livius demanded.
+
+"Rome's!" said Marcia, her eyes intently on his face.  "If Rome should
+split in three parts it would fall asunder.  None but Commodus can save
+us from a civil war.  We are here to learn what Bultius Livius can do to
+preserve the life of Commodus."
+
+Livius' face, grotesque already with its hastily smeared carmine,
+assumed new bewilderment.
+
+"I have seen men tortured who were less ready to betray themselves,"
+said Galen.  "Give him wine--strong wine, that is my advice."
+
+But Marcia preferred her victim thoroughly subjected.
+
+"Fill your eyes with sunlight, Livius.  Breathe deep!  You look and
+breathe your last, unless you satisfy me!  This astrologer, who is not
+Sextus--mark that!  I have said he is not Sextus. Galen certified to
+Sextus' death and there were twenty other witnesses.  Nor is he Maternus
+the highwayman.  Maternus was crucified.  That other Maternus, who is
+rumored to live in the Aventine Hills, is an imaginary person--a mere
+name used by runaways who take to robbery.  This astrologer, I say,
+reports that you know all the secrets of the factions that are
+separately plotting to destroy our Commodus."
+
+Livius did not answer, although she paused to give him time.
+
+"You said you understood me, Livius.  But it is I who understand you--
+utterly!  To you any price is satisfactory if your own skin and
+perquisites are safe.  You are as crafty a spy as any rat in the palace
+cellars.  You have kept yourself informed in order to get the pickings
+when you see at last which side to take. Careful, very clever of you,
+Livius!  But have you ever seen an eagle rob a fish-hawk of its catch?"
+
+"Why waste time?" Cornificia asked impatiently.  "He forced himself on
+Pertinax, who should have had him murdered, only Pertinax is too
+indifferent to his own--"
+
+"Too philosophical!" corrected Galen.
+
+Then Caia Poppeia spoke up, in a young, hard voice that had none of
+Marcia's honeyed charm.  No doubt of her was possible;  she could be
+cruel for the sake of cruelty and loyal for the sake of pride.  Her
+beauty was a mere means to an end--the end intrigue, for the
+impassionate excitement of it.  She was straight-lipped, with a smile
+that flickered, and a hard light in her blue eyes.
+
+"It was I who learned you spy on Marcia.  I know, too, that you keep a
+spy in Britain,--one in Gaul, another in Severus' camp.  I read the last
+nine letters they sent you.  I showed them to Marcia."
+
+"I kept one," Marcia added.  "It came yesterday.  It compromises you
+beyond--"
+
+"I yield!" said Livius, his knees beginning to look weak.
+
+"To whom?  To me?" asked Sextus, standing up abruptly and confronting
+him with folded arms.  "Who stole the list I sent to Pertinax, of names
+of the important men who are intriguing for Severus, and for Pescennius
+Niger, and for Clodius Albinus?"
+
+"Who knows?" Livius shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"None knew of that list but you!" said Sextus.  "You heard me speak of
+it to Pertinax.  You heard me promise I would send it to him.  None but
+you and he and I knew who the messenger would be. Where is the
+messenger?"
+
+"In the sewers probably!" said Marcia.  "The list is more important."
+
+"If it isn't in the sewers, too," said Livius, snatching at a straw.
+"By Hercules, I know nothing of a list."
+
+"Then you shall drown with Sextus' slave in the Cloaca Maxima, the great
+sewer of Rome," said Marcia.  "Not that I need the list.  I know what
+names are written on it.  But if it should have fallen into Caesar's
+hands--"
+
+She shuddered, acting horror perfectly, and Livius, like a drowning man
+who thinks he sees the shore, struck out and sank!
+
+"You threaten me, but I am no such fool as you imagine!  I know all
+about you!  I perceive you have crossed your Rubicon.  Well--"
+
+"Summon the decurion and two men!" Marcia interrupted, glancing at
+Cornificia.  But she made a gesture with her hand that Cornificia
+interpreted to mean "do nothing of the kind!"
+
+Livius did not see the gesture.  Rage, shame, terror overwhelmed him and
+he blurted out the information Marcia was seeking--hurled it at her in
+the form of silly, useless threats:
+
+"You wanton!  You can kill me but my journal is in safe hands! Harm me--
+cause me to be missing from the palace for a few hours, and they may
+light your funeral fires!  My journal, with the names of the
+conspirators, and all the details of your daily intriguing, goes
+straight into Caesar's hands!"
+
+The climax he expected failed.  There was no excitement.  Nobody seemed
+astonished.  Marcia settled herself more comfortably on the couch and
+Galen began whispering to Sextus.  The two other women looked amused.
+Reaction sweeping over him, his senses reeled and Livius stepped
+backward, staggering to the fountain, where he sat down.
+
+"Bona dea!  But the man took time to tell his secret!" Marcia exclaimed.
+"Popeia, you had better take my litter to the palace and bring that minx
+Cornelia.  I suspected it was she but wasn't sure of it.  Don't give her
+an inkling of what you know.  Go with her to her apartment and watch her
+dress;  then make an excuse to keep her waiting in your room while you
+go back and search hers. Have help if you need it;  take two of my
+eunuchs, but watch that they don't read the journal.  Look under her
+mattress.  Look everywhere.  If you can't find the journal, bring
+Cornelia without it.  I will soon make her tell us where it is."
+
+
+
+
+VIII.  NARCISSUS
+
+
+
+"A gladiator's life is not so bad if he behaves himself, and while it
+lasts," Narcissus said.
+
+He was sitting beside Sextus, son of Maximus, in the ergastulum beneath
+the training school of Bruttius Marius, which was well known to be the
+emperor's establishment, although maintained in the name of a citizen.
+There was a stone seat at the end where sunlight poured through a barred
+window high up in the wall.  To right and left facing a central corridor
+were cells with doors of latticed iron.  Each cell had its own barred
+window, hardly a foot square, set high out of reach and the light,
+piercing the latticed doors, made criss-cross patterns on the white wall
+of the corridor.  Narcissus got up, glanced into each cell and sat down
+again beside Sextus.
+
+"The trouble is, they don't," he went on.  "If you let them out, they
+drink and get into poor condition;  and if you keep them in, they kill
+themselves unless they're watched.  These men are reserved for Paulus,
+and they know they haven't a chance against him."
+
+"Paulus' luck won't last forever," Sextus remarked grimly.
+
+"No, nor his skill, I suppose.  But he doesn't debauch himself, so he's
+always in perfect condition."
+
+"Haven't you a man in here who might be made nervy enough to kill him?"
+Sextus asked.  "They would kill the man himself, of course, directly
+afterward, but we might undertake to enrich his relatives."
+
+Narcissus shook his head.
+
+"One might have a chance with the sword or with the net and trident,
+though I doubt it.  But Paulus uses a javelin and his aim is like
+lightning.  Only yesterday at practise they loosed eleven lions at him
+from eleven directions at the same moment. He slew them with eleven
+javelins, and each one stone dead.  Some of these men saw him do it,
+which hasn't encouraged them, I can tell you.  In the second place, they
+know Paulus is Commodus.  He might just as well go into the arena
+frankly as the emperor, for all the secret it is.  That substitute who
+occupies the royal pavilion when Commodus himself is in the arena no
+longer looks very much like him;  he is getting too loose under the
+chin, although a year ago you could hardly tell the two apart.  Even the
+mob knows Paulus is Commodus, although nobody dares to acclaim him
+openly.  Send a gladiator in against another gladiator and even though
+he may know that the other man can split a stick at twenty yards, he
+will do his best.  But let him know he goes against the emperor and he
+has no nerve to start with;  he can't aim straight;  he suspects his own
+three javelins and his shield and helmet have been tampered with.  I
+myself would be afraid to face Paulus, being not much good with the
+javelin in any case, besides being superstitious about killing emperors,
+who are gods, not men, or the senate and priests wouldn't say so.  It is
+the same in the races:  setting aside Caesar's skill, which is simply
+phenomenal, the other charioteers are all afraid of him."
+
+"If he isn't killed soon, Severus or one of the others will forestall us
+all," said Sextus.  "Pertinax has only one chance: to be on the throne
+before the other candidates know what is happening."
+
+Narcissus' bronze face lighted with a sudden smile that rippled all
+around the corners of his mouth, so that he looked like a genial satyr.
+
+"Speaking of killing," he said, "Marcia has ordered me to kill you the
+moment you make up your mind the time has come to strike!"
+
+"You promised her, of course?"
+
+"No, as it happens we were interrupted.  But she relies on me and if she
+ever begins to suspect me I would rather die in the arena than be racked
+and burned!"
+
+"Why not then?  How is this for a proposal?"  Sextus touched him on the
+shoulder.  "Substitute yourself and me for two of these men!  Send me in
+against him first.  If he kills me, you next. One of us might get him.
+I am lucky.  I believe the gods are interested in me, I have had so many
+escapes from death."
+
+"I haven't much faith in the gods," said Narcissus.  "They may be all
+like Commodus.  I heard Galen say that men created gods in their own
+image."
+
+Sextus smiled at him.
+
+"You have been listening, I suppose, to Marcia and her Christians."
+
+"Listening, yes, but I don't lean either way.  It doesn't seem to me
+that Christianity can do much for a man when javelins are in the air.
+And besides, to be frank with you, Sextus, I rather hope to make a
+little something for myself.  God though he is said to be, I would like
+to see Commodus killed for I loathe him. But I hope to survive him and
+obtain my freedom.  Pertinax would manumit me.  That is why I applied
+for the post of trainer in this beastly ergastulum.  It is bad enough to
+have to endure the gloom of men virtually condemned to death and looking
+for a chance to kill themselves, but it is better than treading the sand
+to have one's liver split, one's throat cut, and be dragged out with the
+hooks.  I have fought many a fight, but I liked each one less than the
+last."
+
+He got up and strode again along the corridor, glancing into the cells,
+where gladiators sat fettered to the wall.
+
+"This whole business is getting too confused for me," he grumbled,
+sitting down again.  "You want to kill Commodus, as is reasonable.
+Marcia has ordered me to kill you, which is unreasonable!  Yet for the
+present she protects you.  Why?  She knows you are Commodus' enemy.  She
+seems anxious to save Commodus.  Yet she encourages Pertinax, who
+doesn't want to be emperor;  he only dallies with the thought because
+Marcia helps Cornificia to persuade him!  Isn't that a confusion for
+you?  And now there's Bultius Livius.  As I understand it, Marcia caught
+him spying on her.  No woman in her senses would trust Livius; the man
+has snowbroth in his veins and slow fire in his head. Yet Marcia now
+heaps favors on him!"
+
+"That is my doing," said Sextus.
+
+"Are you mad then, too?"
+
+"Maybe!  I have persuaded Marcia that, now she has possession of the
+journal Livius was keeping, she can henceforth hold that over him and
+use him to advantage.  She can win his gratitude--"
+
+"He has none!"
+
+"--and at the same time hold over him the threat of exposure for
+connection with the Severus faction, and the Pescennius faction, and the
+Clodius Albinus faction.  He had it all down in his journal.  He can
+easily be involved in those conspiracies if Marcia isn't satisfied with
+his spying in her behalf."
+
+"Gemini!  The man will break down under the strain.  He has no stamina.
+He will denounce us all."
+
+"Let us hope so," Sextus answered.  "I am counting on it. Nothing but
+sudden danger will ever bring Pertinax up to the mark!  I gave a bond to
+Marcia for Livius' life."
+
+"Jupiter!  What kind of bond?  And what has come over Marcia that she
+accepted it?"
+
+"I guaranteed to her that I will not denounce herself to Commodus!  She
+saw the point.  She could never clear herself."
+
+"But how could you denounce her?  She can have you seized and silenced
+any time!  Weren't you in Cornificia's house, with the guard at the
+gate?  Why didn't she summon the praetorians and hand you over to them?"
+
+"Because Galen was there, too.  She loves him, trusts him, and Galen is
+my friend.  Besides, Pertinax would turn on her if she should have me
+killed.  Pertinax was my father's friend, and is mine.  Marcia's only
+chance, if Commodus should lose his life, is for Pertinax to seize the
+throne and continue to be her friend and protect her.  Any other
+possible successor to Commodus would have her head off in the same
+hour."
+
+"Well, Sextus, that argument won't keep her from having you murdered.  I
+am only hoping she won't order me to do it, because the cat will be out
+of the bag then.  I will not refuse, but I will certainly not kill you,
+and that will mean--"
+
+"You forget Norbanus and my freedmen," Sextus interrupted.  "She knows
+very well that they know all my secrets.  They would avenge me instantly
+by sending Commodus full information of the plot, involving Marcia head
+over heels.  She is ready to betray Commodus if that should seem the
+safest course.  If she is capable of treachery to him, she is equally
+sure to betray all her friends if she thought her own life were in
+danger!"
+
+"Now listen, Sextus, and don't speak too loud or they'll hear you in the
+cells;  any of these poor devils would jump at a chance to save his own
+skin by betraying you and me.  Talk softly.  I say, listen!  There isn't
+any safety anywhere with all these factions plotting each against the
+other, none knowing which will strike first and Commodus likely to
+pounce on all of them at any minute. I don't know why he hasn't heard of
+it already."
+
+"He is too busy training his body to have time to use his brain," said
+Sextus.  "However, go on."
+
+"I think Commodus is quite likely to have the best of it!" Narcissus
+said, screwing up his eyes as if he gazed at an antagonist across the
+dazzling sand of the arena.  "Somebody--some spy--is sure to inform him.
+There will be wholesale proscriptions.  Commodus will try to scare
+Severus, Niger and Albinus by slaughtering their supporters here in
+Rome.  I can see what is coming."
+
+"Are you, too, a god--like Commodus--that you can see so shrewdly?"
+
+"Never mind.  I can see.  And I can see a better way for you, and for me
+also.  You have made yourself a great name as Maternus, less, possibly,
+in Rome than on the countryside.  You have more to begin with than ever
+Spartacus had--"
+
+"Aye, and less, too," Sextus interrupted.  "For I lack his confidence
+that Rome can be brought to her knees by an army of slaves.  I lack his
+willingness to try to do it.  Rome must be saved by honorable Romans,
+who have Rome at heart and not their own personal ambition.  No army of
+runaway slaves can ever do it. Nothing offends me more than that
+Commodus makes slaves his ministers, and I mean by that no offense to
+you, Narcissus, who are fit to rank with Spartacus himself.  But I am a
+republican. It is not vengeance that I seek.  I will reckon I have lived
+if I have ridded Rome of Commodus and helped to replace him with a man
+who will restore our ancient liberties."
+
+"Liberties?"  Narcissus wore his satyr-smile again.  "It makes small
+difference to slaves and gladiators how much liberty the free men have!
+The more for them, the less for us!  Let us live while the living is
+good, Sextus!  Let us take to the mountains and help ourselves to what
+we need while Pertinax and all these others fight for too much!  Let
+them have their too much and grow sick of it!  What do you and I need
+beyond clothing, a weapon, armor, a girl or two and a safe place for
+retreat?  I have heard Sardinia is wonderful.  But if you still think
+you would rather haunt your old estates, where you know the people and
+they know you, so that you will be warned of any attempt to catch you,
+that will be all right with me.  We can swoop down on the inns along the
+main roads now and then, rob whom it is convenient to rob, and live like
+noblemen!"
+
+"Three years I have lived an outlaw's life," Sextus answered, "sneaking
+into Rome to borrow money from my father's friends to save me the
+necessity of stealing.  It is one thing to pretend to be a robber, and
+another thing to rob.  The robber's name makes nine men out of ten your
+secret well-wishers;  the deed makes you all men's enemy.  How do you
+suppose I have escaped capture?  It was simple enough.  Every robber in
+Italy has called himself Maternus, so that I have seemed to be here,
+there, everywhere, aye, and often in three or four places at once!  I
+have been caught and killed at least a dozen times!  But all the while
+my men and I were safe because we took care to harm nobody.  We let
+others do the murdering and robbing.  We have lived like hermits,
+showing ourselves only often enough to keep alive the Maternus legend."
+
+"Well, isn't that better than risking your neck trying to make and
+unmake emperors?" Narcissus asked.
+
+"I risk my neck each hour I linger in Rome!"
+
+"Well then, by Hercules, take payment for the risk, and cut the risk and
+vanish!" exclaimed Narcissus.  "Help yourself once and for all to a bag
+full of gold in exchange for your father's estates that were confiscated
+when they cut his head off.  Then leave Italy, and let us be outlaws in
+Sardinia."
+
+Sextus laughed.
+
+"That probably sounds glorious to one in your position.  I, too, rather
+enjoyed the prospect when I first made my escape from Antioch and
+discovered how easy the life was.  But though I owe it to my father's
+memory to win back his estates, even that, and present outlawry is small
+compared to the zeal I have for restoring Rome's ancient liberties.  But
+I don't deceive myself; I am not the man who can accomplish that;  I can
+only help the one who can, and will.  That one is Pertinax.  He will
+reverse the process that has been going on since Julius Caesar overthrew
+the old republic.  He will use a Caesar's power to destroy the edifice
+of Caesar and rebuild what Caesar wrecked!"
+
+Narcissus pondered that, his head between his hands.
+
+"I haven't Rome at heart," he said at last.  "Why should I have? There
+are girls, whom I have forgotten, whom I loved more than I love Rome.  I
+am a slave gladiator.  I have been applauded by the crowds, but know
+what that means, having seen other men go the same route.  I am an
+emperor's favorite, and I know what that means too;  I saw Cleander die;
+I have seen man after man, and woman after woman lose his favor
+suddenly.  Banishment, death, the ergastulum, torture--and, what is much
+worse, the insults the brute heaps on any one he turns against--I am too
+wise to give that--" he spat on the flag-stones--"for the friendship of
+Commodus.  And Commodus is Rome;  you can't persuade me he isn't. Rome
+turns on its favorites as he does--scorns them, insults them, throws
+them on dung-heaps.  That for Rome!"  He spat again. "They even break
+the noses off the statues of the men they used to idolize!  They even
+throw the statues on a dung-heap to insult the dead!  Why should I set
+Rome above my own convenience?"
+
+"Well, for instance, you could almost certainly buy your freedom by
+betraying me," said Sextus.  "Why don't you?"
+
+"Jupiter!  How shall a man answer that?  I suppose I don't betray you
+because if I did I should loathe myself.  And I prefer to like myself,
+which I contrive to do at intervals.  Also, I enjoy the company of
+honest men, and I think you are honest, although I think you are also an
+idealist--which, I take it, is the same thing as a born fool, or so I
+have begun to think, since I attend on the emperor and have to hear so
+much talk of philosophy.  Look you what philosophy has made of Commodus!
+Didn't Marcus Aurelius beget him from his own loins, and wasn't Marcus
+Aurelius the greatest of all philosophers?  Didn't he surround young
+Commodus with all the learned idealists he could find?  That is what I
+am told he did.  And look at Commodus!  Our Roman Commodus!  God
+Commodus!  I haven't murdered him because I am afraid, and because I
+don't see how I could gain by it.  I don't betray you because I would
+despise myself if I did."
+
+"I would despise myself if I should be untrue to Rome," Sextus answered
+after a moment.  "Commodus is not Rome.  Neither is the mob Rome."
+
+"What is then?" Narcissus asked.  "The bricks and mortar?  The marble
+that the slaves must haul under the lash?  The ponds where they feed
+their lampreys on dead gladiators?  The arena where a man salutes a
+dummy emperor before a disguised one kills him? The senate, where they
+buy and sell the consulates and praetorships and guaestorships?  The
+tribunals where justice goes by privilege?  The temples where as many
+gods as there are, Romans yell for sacrifices to enrich the priests?
+The farms where the slave-gangs labor like poor old Sysyphus and are
+sold off in their old age to the contractors who clear the latrines, or
+to the galleys, or, if they're lucky, to the lime-kilns where they dry
+up like sticks and die soon?  There is a woman in a side-street near the
+fish-market, who is very rich and looks like Rome to me.  She has so
+many gold rings on her fingers that you can't see the dirt underneath;
+and she owns so many brothels and wine-shops that she can even buy off
+the tax-collectors.  Do I love her?  Do I love Rome?  No! I love you,
+Sextus, son of Maximus, and I will go with you to the world's end if you
+will lead the way."
+
+"I love Rome," Sextus answered.  "Possibly I want to see her liberties
+restored because I love my own liberty and can't imagine myself
+honorable unless Rome herself is honored first. When you and I are sick
+we need a Galen.  Rome needs Pertinax. You ask me what is Rome?  She is
+the cradle of my manhood."
+
+"A befouled nest!" said Narcissus.
+
+"An Augean stable with a Hercules who doesn't do his work, I grant you!
+But we can substitute another Hercules."
+
+"Pertinax is too old," Narcissus objected, weakening, a trifle sulkily.
+
+"He is old enough to wish to die in honor rather than dishonor. You and
+I, Narcissus, have no honor--you a slave and I an outlaw. Let us win,
+then, honor for ourselves by helping to heal Rome of her dishonor!"
+
+"Oh well, have it your own way," said Narcissus, unconvinced.  "A brass
+as for your honor!  The alternative is death or liberty in either case,
+and as for me, I prefer friendship to religion, so I will follow you,
+whichever road you take.  Now go.  These fellows mustn't recognize you.
+It is time to take them one by one into the exercising yard.  I daren't
+take more than one at a time or they'd kill me even with the blunted
+practise-weapons.  I wish they might face Commodus as boldly as they
+tackle me!  I am a weary man, and many times a bruised one, I can tell
+you, when the night comes, after putting twenty of them through their
+paces."
+
+
+
+
+IX.  STEWED EELS
+
+
+
+The training arena where Commodus worked off energy and kept his
+Herculean muscles in condition was within the palace grounds, but the
+tunnel by which he reached it continued on and downward to the Circus
+Maximus, so that he could attend the public spectacles without much
+danger of assassination.
+
+Nevertheless, a certain danger still existed.  One of his worst frenzies
+of proscription had been started by a man who waited for him in the
+tunnel, and lost his nerve and then, instead of killing him, pretended
+to deliver an insulting message from the senate.  Since that time the
+tunnel had been lined with guards at regular intervals, and when
+Commodus passed through his mysterious "double" was obliged to walk in
+front of him surrounded by enough attendants to make any one not in the
+secret believe the double was the emperor himself.
+
+No man in the known world was less incapable than Commodus of self-
+defense against an armed man.  There was no deception about his feats of
+strength and skill;  he was undoubtedly the most terrific fighter and
+consummate athlete Rome had ever seen, and he was as proud of it as Nero
+once was of his "golden voice." But, as he explained to the fawning
+courtiers who shouldered one another for a place beside him as he
+hurried down the tunnel:
+
+"How could Rome replace me?  Yesterday I had to order a slave beaten to
+death for breaking a vase of Greek glass.  I can buy a hundred slaves
+for half what that glass cost Hadrian.  And I could have a thousand
+better senators tomorrow than the fools who belch and stammer in the
+curia, the senate house.  But where would you find another Commodus if
+some lurking miscreant should stab me from behind?  It was the geese
+that saved the capitol. You cacklers can preserve your Commodus."
+
+They agreed in chorus, it would be Rome's irreparable loss if he should
+die, and certain senators, more fertile than the others in expedients
+for drawing his attention to themselves, paused ostentatiously to hold a
+little conversation with the guards and promise them rewards if they
+should catch a miscreant lurking in wait to attack "our beloved, our
+glorious emperor."
+
+Commodus overheard them, as they meant he should.
+
+"And such fulsome idiots as those expect me to believe they can frame
+laws!"  He scowled over-shoulder.  "Write down their names for me,
+somebody.  The senate needs pruning!  I will purge it the way Galen used
+to purge me when I had the colic!  Cioscuri!  But these leaky babblers
+suffocate me!"
+
+He was true to the Caesarian tradition.  He believed himself a god.  He
+more than half-persuaded other men.  His almost superhuman energy and
+skill with weapons, his terrific storms of anger and his magnetism
+overawed courtiers and politicians as they did the gladiators whom he
+slew in the arena.  The strain of madness in his blood provided cunning
+that could mask itself beneath a princely bluster of indifference to
+consequences.  He could fear with an extravagance coequal to the fury of
+his love of danger, and his fear struck terror into men's hearts, as it
+stirred his mad brain into frenzies.
+
+He made no false claim when he called Rome the City of Commodus and
+himself the Roman Hercules.  The vast majority of Romans were unfit to
+challenge his contempt of them, and his contempt was never under cover
+for a moment.
+
+Debauchery, of wine and women, entered not at all into his private life
+although, in public, he encouraged it in others for the simple reason
+that it weakened men who otherwise might turn on him.  He was never
+guilty of excesses that might undermine his strength or shake his
+nerves;  there was an almost superhuman purity about his worship of
+athletic powers.  He outdid the Greeks in that respect.  But he allowed
+the legend of his monstrous orgies in the palace to gain currency,
+partly because that encouraged the Romans to debauch themselves and
+render themselves incapable of overthrowing him, and partly because it
+helped to cover up his trick of employing a substitute to occupy the
+royal pavilion at the games when he himself drove chariots in the races
+or fought in the arena as the gladiator Paulus.
+
+Men who had let wine and women ruin their own nerves knew it was
+impossible that any one, who lived as Commodus was said to do, could
+drive a chariot and wield a javelin as Paulus did.  Whoever faced a
+Roman gladiator under the critical gaze of a crowd that knew all the
+points of fighting and could instantly detect, and did instantly resent
+pretense, fraud, trickery, the poor condition of one combatant or the
+unwillingness of one man to have at another in deadly earnest, had to be
+not only in the pink of bodily condition but a fighter such as no
+drunken sensualist could ever hope to be.  So it was easy to suppress
+the scandal that the gladiator Paulus was the emperor himself, although
+half Rome half-believed it;  and the substitute who occupied the seat of
+honor at the games--ageing a little, growing a little pouchy under eyes
+and chin--was pointed to as proof that Commodus was being ruined by the
+life he led.
+
+The trick of making use of the same substitute to save the emperor the
+boredom of official ceremony, whenever there was no risk of the public
+coming close enough to detect the fraud, materially helped to strengthen
+the officially fostered argument that Commodus could not be Paulus.
+
+So the mystery of the identity of Paulus was like all court secrets and
+most secrets of intriguing governments, no mystery at all to hundreds,
+but to thousands an insoluble conundrum.  The official propagandists of
+the court news, absolutely in control of all the channels through which
+facts could reach the public, easily offset the constant leakage from
+the lips of slaves and gladiators by disseminating artfully concocted
+news.  Those actually in the secret, flattered by the confidence and
+fearful for their own skins, steadfastly denied the story when it
+cropped up.  Last, but not least, was the law, that made it sacrilege to
+speak in terms derogatory to the emperor.  A gladiator, though the crowd
+might almost deify him, was a casteless individual, unprivileged before
+the law, whom any franchised citizen would rate as socially far beneath
+himself.  To have identified the emperor with Paulus in a voice above a
+whisper would have made the culprit liable to death and confiscation of
+his goods.
+
+The substitute himself, a man of mystery, was kept in virtual
+imprisonment.  He was known as "Pavonius Nasor," not because that was
+his real name, which was known to very few people, but because of an old
+legend that the ghost of a certain Pavonius Nasor, murdered centuries
+ago and never buried, still walked in the neighborhood of that part of
+the palace where the emperor's substitute now led his mysterious, secret
+existence.
+
+There were plenty of whispered stories current as to his true identity.
+Some said he was an impoverished landholder whom Commodus had met by
+accident when traveling in Northern Italy. But it was much more commonly
+believed he was the emperor's twin brother, spirited away at birth by
+midwives, and the stories told to account for that were as remarkably
+unlikely as the tale itself;  as for instance, that a soothsayer had
+prophesied how Commodus should one day mount the throne and that he and
+his twin brother would wreck Rome in civil war--a warning hardly likely
+to have had much weight with the father, Marcus Aurelius, although the
+mother was more likely to have given credence to it.
+
+Whatever the truth of his origin, Pavonius Nasor never ran the risk of
+telling it.  He kept his sinecure by mastering his tongue, preserving
+almost bovine speechlessness.  When he and Commodus met face to face he
+never seemed to see the joke of the resemblance, never laughed at
+Commodus' obscenely vivid jibes at his expense, nor once complained of
+his anomalous position.  He appeared to be a man of no ambition other
+than to get through life as easily as might be--of no personal dignity,
+no ruling habits, but possessed of imitative talent that enabled him,
+without the slightest trouble, to adopt the very gait and gesture of the
+emperor whom he impersonated.
+
+
+As he strode ahead along the tunnel he received the guards' salute with
+merely enough nod of recognition to deceive an onlooker not in the
+secret.  (It was Pavonius Nasor's half-indulgent, rather lazy smile that
+had persuaded Rome and even the praetorian guards that Commodus was an
+easy-going, sensual, good humored man.)
+
+There was a box at one end of the private arena, over the gate where the
+horses entered, so placed as to avoid the sun's direct rays.  It was
+reached by a short stairway from an anteroom that opened on the tunnel.
+There was no other means of access to the box.  It's wooden sidewalls,
+finished to resemble gilded eagle's wings, projected over the arena so
+that it was well screened and in shadow.  There was none, observing from
+below, who could have sworn it had not been the emperor himself who sat
+in the box and watched Paulus the gladiator showing off his skill.
+
+The assembled gladiators, perfectly aware of Paulus' true identity, went
+through the farce of solemnly saluting as the emperor the man who stared
+down at them from beneath an awning's shadow between golden eagle's
+wings, and who returned the salute with a wave of the arm that all Rome
+could have recognized.
+
+Commodus, nearly as naked as when he was born, came running from a
+dressing room and pranced and leaped over the sand to bring the sweat-
+beads to his skin;  then, snatching at the nearest gladiator, wrestled
+with him until the breathless victim cried for mercy;  dropped him then,
+as crushed as if a python had left a job half-finished, and shouted for
+the ashen sword-sticks.  In a minute, with a leather buckler on his left
+arm, he was parrying the thrusts and blows of six men, driving and so
+crowding them on one another's toes that only two could seriously answer
+the terrific flailing of his own ash stick.  He named them, named his
+blow, and laid them one by one, half-stunned and bleeding on the sand,
+until the last one by a quick feint landed on him, raising a great
+crimson welt across his shoulders.
+
+"Well done!" Commodus exclaimed and smote him on the skull so fiercely
+that he broke the sword-stick.  "You have killed him," said a senator as
+two men promptly seized the victim's arms to drag him out.
+
+"Possibly," said Commodus.  "That blow I landed on him would have killed
+a horse.  But he is fortunate.  He dies proud--prouder than you ever
+will, Varronius!  He got past Paulus' guard!  Would you like to attempt
+it?  Woman!  How I loathe you soft, effeminate, sleek senators!  You
+fear death and you fear life equally!  Where is Narcissus?  Where are
+those men who are to try to kill me at my birthday games?"
+
+There was no answer from Narcissus.  Commodus forgot him in a moment,
+called for javelins and hurled them at a target, then at half-a-dozen
+targets, hitting all six marks exactly in the middle as he spun himself
+on one heel.
+
+"I am in fettle!" he exclaimed, clapping the back of the senator whom he
+had scurrilously insulted a moment ago.  If he was conscious of applause
+from the group of courtiers and gladiators he gave no sign of it.  What
+pleased him was his own ability, not their praises.
+
+"Lions!" he said.  "Loose that big one!"
+
+"Paulus," a scarred veteran answered (they were all forbidden to address
+him by any other name in that arena), "you have ordered us to keep that
+fellow for the birthday games.  If you keep killing all the best ones
+off at practise, what shall we do when the day comes?  The last ship-
+load has arrived from Africa and already you have used up nearly half of
+them.  There is no chance of another cargo arriving in time for the
+games.  And besides, we have lacked corpses recently;  that big one
+hasn't tasted man's flesh.  He is hungry now.  He will eat whatever we
+throw in, so let him taste the right meat that will make him savage."
+
+"Loose a leopard then."
+
+The veteran went off without a word to give his orders to the men below-
+ground, whose duty it was to drag the cages to the openings of tunnels
+in the masonry through which the animals emerged into the sunlight.
+There were ten such openings on either side of the arena, closed by
+trapdoors, set in grooves, that could be raised by ropes from overhead.
+
+Commodus picked up one javelin and poised it.  Half-a-dozen gladiators
+watched him, paying no attention to the doors, through any one of which
+the animal might come.  They knew their Paulus, and were trained,
+besides, to look at death or danger with a curious, contemptuous calm.
+But the courtiers were nervous, grouping themselves where the sunlight
+threw a V-shaped shadow on the sand, as if they thought that semi-
+twilight would protect them.
+
+A wooden door rose squeaking in its grooves but Commodus kept his back
+toward it.
+
+"Women!" he exclaimed.
+
+His sudden scowl transformed his handsome face into a thing of horror.
+He began to mutter savagely obscene abuse.  A leopard crept into the
+sunlight, tried to turn again but was prevented by the closing trap, and
+crouched against the arena wall.
+
+"Beware!  The beast comes!" said a gladiator.
+
+"Hold your presumptuous tongue, you slave-born rascal!" Commodus
+retorted.  "Take that yapping dog away and have him whipped!"
+
+A man stepped from the entrance gate to beckon the offending gladiator,
+who walked out with a look of hatred on his face.  He paused once,
+hesitating whether to ask mercy, and thought better of it, shrugging his
+fine bronzed shoulders.  The leopard left the wall and crept toward the
+center of the sand, his black and yellow beauty rippling in the sunlight
+and his shadow looking like death's trailing cloak.  The courtiers
+seemed doubtful which of the two beasts to watch, leopard or emperor.
+
+"A spear!" said Commodus.  A gladiator put it in his hand.
+
+"Varronius!  It irks me to have cowards in the senate!  Let me see you
+try to kill that leopard!"
+
+Decadent and grown effeminate though Rome was, there was no patrician
+who had not received some training in the use of arms. Varronius took
+the spear at once, his white hands closing on the shaft with military
+firmness.  But his white face gave the lie to the alacrity with which he
+strode out of the shadow.
+
+"Kill him, and you shall have the consulate next year!" said Commodus.
+"Be killed, and there will be one useless bastard less to clutter up the
+curia!"
+
+A flush of anger swept over the senator's pale face.  For a moment he
+looked almost capable of lunging with the spear at Commodus--but
+Commodus was toying with the javelin.  Varronius strode out to face the
+leopard, and the lithe beast did not wait to feel the spear-point.  It
+began to stalk its adversary in irregular swift curves.  Its body almost
+pressed the sand.  Its eyes were spots of sunlit topaz.  Commodus' frown
+vanished.  He began to gloat over the leopard's subtlety and strength.
+
+"He is a lovelier thing than you, Varronius!  He is a better fighter!
+He is manlier!  He is worth more!  He has kept his body stronger and his
+wits more nimble!  He will get you!  By the Dioscuri, he will get you!
+I will bet a talent that he gets you--and I hope he does!  You hold your
+spear the way a woman holds a distaff--but observe the way he gathers
+all his strength in readiness to leap instantly in any direction!  Ah!"
+
+The leopard made a feint, perhaps to test the swiftness of the spear-
+point.  Leaping like a flash of light, he seemed to change direction in
+mid-air, the point missing him by half a hand's breadth.  One terrific
+claw, outreaching as he turned, ripped open Varronius' tunic and brought
+a little stream of crimson trickling down his left arm.
+
+"Good!" Commodus remarked.  "First blood to the braver!  Who would like
+to bet with me?"
+
+"I!" Varronius retorted from between set teeth, his eyes fixed on the
+leopard that had recommenced his swift strategic to-and-fro stalking
+movement.
+
+"I have betted you the consulship already.  Who else wants to bet?"
+asked Commodus.
+
+Before any one could answer the leopard sprang in again at Varronius,
+who stepped aside and drove his spear with very well timed accuracy.
+Only force enough was lacking.  The point slit the leopard's skin and
+made a stinging wound along the beast's ribs, turning him the way a
+spur-prick turns a horse.  His snarl made Varronius step back another
+pace or two, neglecting his chance to attack and drive the spear-point
+home.  The infuriated leopard watched him for a moment, ears back, tail
+spasmodically twitching, then shot to one side and charged straight at
+the group of courtiers.
+
+They scattered.  They were almost unarmed.  There were three of them who
+stumbled, interfering with each other.  The nearest to the leopard drew
+a dagger with a jeweled hilt, a mere toy with a light blade hardly
+longer than his hand.   He threw his toga over his left forearm and
+stood firm to make a fight for it, his white face rigid and his eyes
+ablaze.  The leopard leaped--and fell dead, hardly writhing.  Commodus'
+long javelin had caught him in the middle of his spring, exactly at the
+point behind the shoulder-bone that leaves a clear course to the heart.
+
+
+"I would not have done that for a coward, Tullius!  If you had run I
+would have let him kill you!"
+
+Commodus strode up and pulled out the javelin, setting one foot on the
+leopard and exerting all his strength.
+
+"Look here, Varronius.  Do you see how deep my blade went?  Pin-pricks
+are no use against man or animal.  Kill when you strike, like great Jove
+with his thunderbolts!  Life isn't a game between Maltese kittens;  it's
+a spectacle in which the strong devour the weak and all the gods look
+on!  Loose another leopard there! I'll show you!"
+
+He took the spear from Varronius, balanced it a moment, discarded it and
+chose another, feeling its point with his thumb.  There was a squeak of
+pulleys as they loosed a leopard near the end of the arena.  He charged
+the animal, leaping from foot to foot.  He made prodigious leaps;  there
+was no guessing which way he would jump next.  He was not like a human
+being.  The leopard, snarling, slunk away, attempting to avoid him, but
+he crowded it against the wall.  He forced it to turn at bay.  No eye
+was quick enough to see exactly how he killed it, save that he struck
+when the leopard sprang.  The next thing that anybody actually saw, he
+had the writhing creature on the spear, in air, like a legion's
+standard.
+
+Then the madness surged into his brain.
+
+"So I rule Rome!" he exclaimed, and threw the leopard at the gladiators'
+feet.  "Because I pity Rome that could not find another Paulus!  I
+strike first, before they strike me!"
+
+They flattered him--fawned on him, but he was much too genuinely mad for
+flattery to take effect.  "If you were worth a barrelful of rats I'd
+have a senate that might save me trouble!  Then like Tiberius I might
+remain away from Rome and live more like a god. I've more than half a
+mind to let my dummy stay here to amuse you wastrels!"  He glanced up at
+the box, where his substitute lolled and yawned and smiled.  "All you
+degenerates need is some one you can rub yourselves against like fat
+cats mewing for a bowl of milk!  By Hercules, now I'll show you
+something that will make your blood leap.  Bring out the new Spanish
+team."
+
+With an imperious gesture he sent senators and gladiators to scatter
+themselves all over the arena.  Not yet satisfied, he ordered all the
+guards fetched from the tunnel and arranged them in a similar disorder,
+so that finally no stretch of fifty yards was left without a man
+obstructing it.  There was no spina down the midst, nor anything except
+the surrounding wall to suggest to a team of horses which the course
+might be.
+
+"Let none move!" he commanded.  "I will crush the foot of any man who
+stirs!"
+
+Attendants, clinging to the heads of four gray stallions that fought and
+kicked, brought out his chariot and others shut the gate behind it.
+Commodus admired the team a minute, then examined the new high wheels of
+the gilded chariot, that was hardly wider than a coffin--a thing that a
+man could upset with a shove and built to look as flimsy as an egg
+shell.  Suddenly he seized the reins and leaped in, throwing up his
+right hand.
+
+If he could have ruled his empire as he drove that chariot he would have
+far outshone Augustus, for whose memory men sighed. He managed them with
+one hand.  There was magnetism sent along the reins to play with the
+dynamic energy of four mad stallions as gods amuse themselves with men.
+If empire had amused him as athleticism did there would have been no
+equal in all history to Commodus.
+
+In a chariot no other athlete could have balanced, on a course providing
+not one unobstructed stretch of fifty yards, he drove like Phoebus
+breaking in the horses of the Sun, careering this and that way, weaving
+patterns in among the frightened men who stood like posts for him to
+drive around.  He missed them by a hand's breadth--less!  He took
+delight in driving at them, turning in the last half-second, smiling at
+a blanched face as he wheeled and wove new figures down another zigzag
+avenue of men. The frenzy of the team inspired him;  the rebellion of
+the stallions, made mad by the persistent, sudden turns, aroused his own
+astonishing enthusiasm.  He accomplished the impossible!  He made new
+laws of motion, breaking them, inventing others!  He became a god in
+action, mastering the team until it had no consciousness of any self-
+will, or of any impulse but to loose its full strength under the
+directing will of genius.
+
+The team tired first.  It was its waning speed that wearied him at last.
+The mania that owned him could not tolerate the anticlimax of declining
+effort, so his mood changed.  He became morose--indifferent.  He reined
+in, tossed the reins to an attendant and began to walk toward the tunnel
+entrance, clothed as he was in nothing but the practise loin-cloth of a
+gladiator.
+
+A dozen senators implored him to wait and clothe himself.  He would not
+wait.  He ordered them to bring his cloak and overtake him.  Then he
+observed Narcissus, standing near the horse-gate, waiting to summon his
+trained gladiators for an exhibition:
+
+"Not this time, Narcissus.  Next time.  Follow me."  He waited for a
+moment for Narcissus.  That gave the substitute time to come down from
+the box and go hurrying ahead into the tunnel-mouth;  he went so fast
+(for he knew the emperor's moods) that the attendants found it hard to
+keep up;  most of them were half a dozen paces in the rear.  A senator
+gave Commodus his cloak. He took Narcissus by the arm and strode ahead
+into the tunnel, muttering, ignoring noisy protests from the senators,
+who warned him that the guards were not yet there.
+
+
+Then there was sudden silence;  possibly a consequence of Caesar's mood,
+or the reaction caused by chill and tunnel-darkness after sunlit sand.
+Or it might have been the shadow of impending tragedy.  A long scream
+broke the silence, thrice repeated, horrible, like something from an
+unseen world. Instantly Narcissus leaped ahead into the darkness,
+weaponless but armed by nature with the muscles of a panther.  Commodus
+leaped after him;  his mood reversed again.  Now emulation had him;  he
+would not be beaten to a scene of action by a gladiator. He let his
+cloak fall and a senator tripped over it.
+
+There were no lamps.  Something less than twilight, deepened here and
+there by shadow, filled the tunnel.  By a niche intended for a sentry
+the attendants were standing helplessly around the body of a man who lay
+with head and shoulders propped against the wall.  Narcissus and
+another, like knotted snakes, were writhing near by.  There was a sound
+of choking.  Pavonius Nasor was silent.  He appeared already dead.
+
+"Pluto!  Is there no light?" Commodus demanded.  "What has happened?"
+
+"They have killed your shadow, sire!"
+
+"Who killed him?"
+
+"Men who sprang out of the darkness suddenly."
+
+"One man.  Only one.  I have him here.  He lives yet, but he dies!"
+Narcissus said.
+
+He dragged a writhing body on the flagstones, holding it by one wrist.
+
+"He was armed.  I had to throttle him to save my liver from his knife.
+I think I broke his neck.  He is certainly dying," said Narcissus.
+
+Some one had gone for a lamp and came along the tunnel with it.
+
+"Let me look," said Commodus.  "Here, give me that lamp!"
+
+He looked first at Pavonius Nasor, who gazed back, at him with stupid,
+passionless, already dimming eyes.  A stream of blood was gushing from
+below his left arm.
+
+"Now the gods of heaven and hell, and all the strange gods that have no
+resting place, and all the spirits of the air and earth and sea, defile
+your spirit!" Commodus exploded.  "Careless, irresponsible, ungrateful
+fool!  You have deprived me of my liberty!  You let yourself be killed
+like any sow under the butcher's knife, and dare to leave me shadowless?
+Then die like carrion and rot unburied!"
+
+He began to kick him, but the stricken man's lips moved. Commodus bent
+down and tried to   listen--tried again, mastered impatience and at last
+stood upright, shaking both fists at the tunnel roof.
+
+"Omnipotent Progenitor of Lightnings!" he exploded.  "He says he should
+have had stewed eels tonight!"
+
+The watching senators mistook that for a cue to laugh.  Their laughter
+touched off all the magazines of Caesar's rage.  He turned into a mania.
+He tore at his own hair.  He tore off his loin-cloth and stood naked.
+He tried to kill Narcissus, because Narcissus was the nearest to him.
+His crashing centurion's parade voice filled the tunnel.
+
+"Dogs!  Dogs' ullage!  Vipers!" he yelled.  "Who slew my shadow? Who did
+it?  This is a conspiracy!  Who hatched it?  Bring my tablets!  Warn the
+executioners!  What is Commodus without his dummy?  Vultures!  Better
+have killed me than that poor obliging fool!  You cursed, stupid idiots!
+You have killed my dummy!  I must sit as he did and look on.  I must
+swallow stinking air of throne-rooms.  I must watch sluggards fight--you
+miserable, wanton imbeciles!  It is Paulus you have killed!  Do you
+appreciate that?  Jupiter, but I will make Rome pay for this! Who did
+it?  Who did it, I say?"
+
+Rage blinded him.  He did not see the choking wretch whose wrist
+Narcissus twisted, until he struck at Narcissus again and, trying to
+follow him, stumbled over the assassin.
+
+"Who is this?  Give me a sword, somebody!  Is this the murderer? Bring
+that lamp here!"
+
+Bolder than the others, having recently been praised, the senator
+Tullius brought the lamp and, kneeling, held it near the culprit's face.
+The murderer was beyond speech, hardly breathing, with his eyes half-
+bursting from the sockets and his tongue thrust forward through his
+teeth because Narcissus' thumbs had almost strangled him.
+
+"A Christian," said Tullius.
+
+There was a note of quiet exultation in his voice.  The privileges of
+the Christians were a sore point with the majority of senators.
+
+"A what?" demanded Commodus.
+
+"A Christian.  See--he has a cross and a fish engraved on bone and wears
+it hung from his neck beneath his tunic.  Besides, I think I recognize
+the man.  I think he is the one who waylaid Pertinax the other day and
+spoke strange stuff about a whore on seven hills whose days are
+numbered."
+
+He had raised up the man's head by the hair.  Commodus stamped on the
+face with the flat of his sandal, crushing the head on the flagstones.
+
+"Christian!" he shouted.  "Is this Marcia's doing?  Is this Marcia's
+expedient to keep me out of the arena?  Too long have I endured that
+rabble!  I will rid Rome of the brood!  They kill the shadow--they shall
+feel the substance!"
+
+Suddenly he turned on his attendants--pointed at the murderer and his
+victim:
+
+"Throw those two into the sewer!  Strip them--strip them now--let none
+identify them.  Seize those spineless fools who let the murder happen.
+Tie them.  You, Narcissus--march them back to the arena.  Have them
+thrown into the lions' cages.  Stay there and see it done, then come and
+tell me."
+
+The courtiers backed away from him as far out of the circle of the
+lamplight as the tunnel-wall would let them.  He had snatched the lamp
+from Tullius.  He held it high.
+
+"Two parts of me are dead;  the shadow that was satisfied with eels for
+supper and the immortal Paulus whom an empire worshiped. Remains me--the
+third part--Commodus!  You shall regret those two dead parts of me!"
+
+He hurled the lighted lamp into the midst of them and smashed it, then,
+in darkness, strode along the tunnel muttering and cursing as he went--
+stark naked.
+
+
+
+
+X.  "ROME IS TOO MUCH RULED BY WOMEN!"
+
+
+
+"He is in the bath," said Marcia.  She and Galen were alone with
+Pertinax, who looked splendid in his official toga.  She was herself in
+disarray.  Her woman had tried to dress her hair on the way in the
+litter;  one long coil of it was tumbling on her shoulder.  She looked
+almost drunken.
+
+"Where is Flavia Titiana?" she demanded.
+
+"Out," said Pertinax and shut his lips.  He never let himself discuss
+his wife's activities.  The peasant in him, and the orthodox grammarian,
+preferred less scandalous subjects.
+
+Marcia stared long at him, her liquid, lazy eyes, suggesting banked
+fires in their depths, looking for signs of spirit that should rise to
+the occasion.  But Pertinax preferred to choose his own occasions.
+
+"Commodus is in the bath," Marcia repeated.  "He will stay there until
+night comes.  He is sulking.  He has his tablets with him--writes and
+writes, then scratches out.  He has shown what he writes to nobody, but
+he has sent for Livius."
+
+"We should have killed that dog," said Pertinax, which brought a sudden
+laugh from Galen.
+
+"A dog's death never saved an empire," Galen volunteered.  "If you had
+murdered Livius the crisis would have come a few days sooner, that is
+all."
+
+"It is the crisis.  It has come," said Marcia.  "Commodus came storming
+into my apartment, and I thought he meant to kill me with his own hands.
+Usually I am not afraid of him.  This time he turned my strength to
+water.  He yelled 'Christians!' at me, 'Christians!  You and your
+Christians!'  He was unbathed.  He was half-naked.  He was sweaty from
+his exercise.  His hair was ruffled;  he had torn out some of it.  His
+scowl was frightful--it was freezing."
+
+"He is quite mad," Galen commented.
+
+"I tried to make him understand this could not be a plot or I would
+certainly have heard of it," Marcia went on with suppressed excitement.
+"I said it was the madness of one fanatic, that nobody could foresee.
+He wouldn't listen.  He out-roared me.  He even raised his fist to
+strike.  He swore it was another of my plans to keep him out of the
+arena.  I began to think it might be wiser to admit that.  Even in his
+worst moods he is sometimes softened by the thought that I take care of
+him and love him enough to risk his anger.  But not this time!  He flew
+into the worst passion I have ever seen.  He returned to his first
+obsession, that the Christians plotted it and that I knew all about it.
+He swore he will butcher the Christians.  He will rid Rome of them.  He
+says, since he can not play Paulus any longer he will out-play Nero."
+
+"Where is Sextus?" Pertinax asked.
+
+"Aye! Where is Sextus!"
+
+Marcia glared at Galen.
+
+"We have to thank you for Sextus!  You persuaded Pertinax to shield
+Sextus.  Pertinax persuaded me."
+
+"You did it!" Galen answered dryly.  "It is what we do that matters.
+Squealing like a pig under a gate won't remedy the matter.  You foresaw
+the crisis long ago.  Sextus has been very useful to you.  He has kept
+you informed, so don't lower yourself by turning on him now.  What is
+the latest news about the other factions?"
+
+Marcia restrained herself, biting her lip.  She loved old Galen, but she
+did not relish being told the whole responsibility was hers, although
+she knew it.
+
+"There is no news," she answered.  "Nobody has heard a word about the
+murder yet.  Commodus has had the bodies thrown into the sewer.  But
+there are spies in the palace--"
+
+"To say nothing of Bultius Livius," Pertinax added.  He was clicking the
+rings on his fingers--symptom of irresolution that made Marcia grit her
+teeth.
+
+"The other factions are watching one another," Marcia went on. "They are
+irresolute because they have no leader near enough to Rome to strike
+without warning.  Why are you irresolute?"  She looked so hard at
+Pertinax that he got up and began to pace the floor.  "Severus and his
+troops are in Pannonia.  Pescennius Niger is in Syria.  Clodius Albinus
+is in Britain.  The senators are all so jealous and afraid for their own
+skins that they are as likely as not to betray one another to Commodus
+the minute they learn that a crisis exists.  If they hear that Commodus
+is writing out proscription lists they will vie with one another to
+denounce their own pet enemies--including you--and me!" she added.
+
+"There is one chance yet," said Pertinax.  "Bultius Livius may have
+enough wisdom to denounce the leaders of the other factions and to clear
+us.  None of the others would be grateful to him. That Carthaginian
+Severus, for instance, is invariably spiteful to the men who do him
+favors.  Bultius Livius may see that to protect us is his safest course,
+as well as best for Rome."
+
+He had more to say, but Marcia's scorn interrupted him.  Galen chuckled.
+
+"Rome!  He cares only for Bultius Livius.  It is now or never,
+Pertinax!"
+
+Marcia's intense emotion made her appear icily indifferent, but she did
+not deceive Galen, although Pertinax welcomed her calmness as excusing
+unenthusiasm in herself.
+
+"Marcia is right," said Galen.  "It is now or never.  Marcia ought to
+know Commodus!"
+
+"Know him?" she exploded.  "I can tell you step by step what he will do!
+He will come out of the bath and eat a light meal, but he will drink
+nothing, for fear of poison.  Presently he will be thirsty and lonely,
+and will send for me;  and whatever he feels, he will pretend he loves
+me.  When the raging fear is on him he will never drink from any one but
+me.  He will take a cup of wine from my hands, making me taste it first.
+Then he will go alone into his own room, where only that child
+Telamonion will dare to follow.  Everything depends then on the child.
+If the child should happen to amuse him he will turn sentimental and I
+will dare to go in and talk to him.  If not--"
+
+Galen interrupted.
+
+"Madness," he said, "resembles many other maladies, there being symptoms
+frequently for many years before the slow fire bursts into a blaze.
+Some die before the outbreak, being burned up by the generating process,
+which is like a slow fire.  But if they survive until the explosion, it
+is more violent the longer it has been delayed.  And in the case of
+Commodus that means that other men will die.  And women," he added,
+looking straight at Marcia.
+
+"If he even pretends he loves me--I am a woman," said Marcia.  "I love
+him in spite of his frenzies.  If I only had myself to think of--"
+
+"Think then!" Galen interrupted.  "If you can't think for yourself, do
+you expect to benefit the world by thinking?"
+
+Marcia buried her face in her hands and lay face downward on the couch.
+She was trembling in a struggle for self-mastery. Pertinax chewed at his
+finger-nails, which were the everlasting subject of his proud wife's
+indignation;  he never kept his fine hands properly;  the peasant in him
+thought such refinements effeminate, unsoldierly.  Cornificia, who could
+have made him submit even to a manicure, understood him too well to
+insist.
+
+"Galen!" said Marcia, sitting up suddenly.
+
+The old man blinked.  He recognized decision sudden and irrevocable.  He
+clenched his fingers and his lower lip came forward by the fraction of
+an inch.
+
+"I must save my Christians.  What do you know about poisons?" she
+demanded.
+
+"Less than many people," Galen answered.  "I have studied antidotes.  I
+am a doctor.  Those I poisoned thought as I did, that I gave them
+something for their health.  My methods have changed with experience.
+Doctoring is like statesmanship--which is to say, groping in the dark
+through mazes of misinformation."
+
+"Know you a poison," asked Marcia, "that will not harm one who merely
+tastes it, but will kill whoever drinks a quantity? Something without
+flavor?  Something colorless that can be mixed with wine?  Know you a
+safe poison, Galen?"
+
+"Aye--irresolution!" Galen answered.  "I will not be made a victim of
+it.  Who shall aspire to the throne if Commodus dies?"
+
+"Pertinax!"
+
+Pertinax looked startled, stroking his beard, uncrossing his knees.
+
+"Then let Pertinax do his own work," said Galen.  "Rome is full of
+poisoners, but hasn't Pertinax a sword?"
+
+"Aye.  And it has been the emperor's until this minute," Pertinax said
+grimly.  "Galen tells us Commodus is mad.  And I agree that Rome
+deserves a better emperor.  But whether I am fit to be that emperor is
+something not yet clear to me.  I doubt it.  Whom the Fates select for
+such a purpose, they compel, and he is unwise who resists them.  I will
+not resist.  But let there be no doubt on this point:  I will not slay
+Commodus.  I will not draw sword against the man to whom I owe my
+fortune.  I am not an ingrate. Sextus lives for his revenge.  If you
+should ask me I would answer, Sextus planned this murder in the tunnel
+and the blow was meant for Commodus himself.  I am inclined to deal with
+Sextus firmly.  It is not too late.  There is a chance that Commodus,
+deprived now of his opportunities to make himself a spectacle, may bend
+his energies to government.  Madman though he is, he is the emperor, and
+if he is disposed now to govern well, with capable advisers, I would be
+the last to turn on him."
+
+"If he will be advised by you?" suggested Marcia, her accent tart with
+sarcasm.  "What will you advise him about Sextus?"
+
+"There are plenty of ways of getting rid of Sextus without killing him,"
+said Pertinax.  "He is a young man needing outlets for his energy and
+fuel for his pride.  If he were sent to Parthia, in secret, as an agent
+authorized to penetrate that country and report on military,
+geographical and economic facts--"
+
+"He would refuse to go!" said Galen.  "And if made to go, he would
+return!  O Pertinax--!"
+
+"Be quiet!" Pertinax retorted irritably.  "I will not submit to being
+lectured.  I am Governor of Rome--though you are Galen the philosopher.
+And I remember many of your adages this minute, as for instance:  'It is
+he who acts who is responsible.'  To kill an emperor is easy, Galen.  To
+replace him is as difficult as to fit a new head to a body.  We have
+talked a lot of treason, most of it nonsense.  I have listened to too
+much of it.  I am as guilty as the others.  But when it comes to slaying
+Commodus and standing in his shoes--"
+
+Marcia interrupted.
+
+"By the great Twin Brethren, Pertinax!  Who can be surprised that Flavia
+Titiana seeks amusement in the arms of other men!  Does Cornificia
+endure such peasant talk?  Or do you keep it to impose on us as a relief
+from her more noble conversation?  Dea Dia! Had I known how spineless
+you can be I would have set my cap at Lucius Severus long ago.  It may
+be it is not too late."
+
+She had him!  She had pricked him in the one place where he could be
+stirred to spitefulness.  His whole face crimsoned suddenly.
+
+"That Carthaginian!"  He came and stood in front of her.  "If you had
+favored him you should have foregone my friendship, Marcia! Commodus is
+bad enough.  Severus would be ten times worse!  Where Commodus is merely
+crazy, Lucius Severus is a calculating, ice-cold monster of cruelty!  He
+has no emotions except those aroused by venom!  He would tear out your
+heart just as swiftly as mine! As for plotting with him, he would let
+you do it all and then denounce you to the senate after he was on the
+throne!"
+
+"Either it must be Severus, or else you!" said Marcia.  "Which is it to
+be?"
+
+Pertinax folded his arms.
+
+"I would feel it my duty to preserve Rome from Severus.  But you go too
+fast.  Our Commodus is on the throne--"
+
+"And writes proscription lists!" said Marcia.  "Who knows what names are
+on the lists already?  Who knows what Bultius Livius may have told him?
+Who knows which of us will be alive tomorrow morning?  Who knows what
+Sextus is doing?  If Sextus has heard of this crisis he will seize the
+moment and either arouse the praetorian guard to mutiny or else reach
+Commodus himself and slay him with his own hand! Sextus is a man!  Are
+you no more than Flavia Titiana's cuckold and Cornificia's plaything?"
+
+"I am a Roman," Pertinax retorted angrily.  "I think of Rome before
+myself.  You women only think of passion and ambition. Rome--city of a
+thousand triumphs!"  He turned away, pacing the floor again, knitting
+his fingers behind him.  "Pertinax would offer up himself if he might
+bring back the Augustan days--if he might win the warfare that Tiberius
+lost.  One Pertinax is nothing in the life of Rome.  One life, three-
+quarters spent, is but a poor pledge to the gods--yet too much to be
+thrown away in vain.  The auguries are all mixed nowadays.  I doubt
+them.  I mistrust the shaven priests who dole out answers in return for
+minted money.  I have knelt before the holy shrine of Vesta, but the
+Virgins were as vague as the Egyptian who prophesied--"
+
+He hesitated.
+
+"What?" demanded Marcia.
+
+"That I should serve Rome and receive ingratitude.  What else does any
+man receive who serves Rome?  They who cheat her are the ones who
+prosper!"
+
+"Send for Cornificia," said Marcia.  "She keeps your resolution. Let her
+come and loose it!"  Pertinax turned sharply on her.
+
+"Flavia Titiana shall not suffer that indignity.  Cornificia can not
+enter this house."
+
+But the mention of Cornificia's name wrought just as swift a change in
+him as had the name of Lucius Severus.  He began to bite his finger-
+nails, then clenched his hands again behind him, Galen and Marcia
+watching.
+
+"You are the only one who can replace Commodus without drenching Rome in
+blood," said Marcia, remembering a phrase of Cornificia's.  And since
+the words were Cornificia's, and stirred the chords of many memories,
+they produced a sort of half-way resolution.
+
+"It is now or never," Marcia said, goading him.  But Pertinax shook his
+head.
+
+"I am not convinced, though I would do my best to save Rome from
+Severus.  Dioscuri!--do you realize, this plot to make me emperor is
+known to not more than a dozen--"
+
+"Therein safety lies," said Marcia.  "Yourself included there can only
+be a dozen traitors!"
+
+"Rome is too much ruled by women!  I will not kill Commodus, and I will
+give him this one chance," said Pertinax.  "I will protect him, unless
+and until I shall discover proof that he intends to turn on you, or me,
+or any of my friends."
+
+"You may discover that too late!" said Marcia;  but she seemed to
+understand him and looked satisfied.  "Come tonight to the palace--
+Galen," she added, "come you also--and bring poison!"
+
+Galen met her gaze and shut his lips tight.
+
+"Galen," she said, "either you will do this or--I have been your friend.
+Now be you mine!  It is too risky to send one of my slaves to fetch a
+poison.  You are to come tonight and bring the poison with you.
+Otherwise--you understand?"
+
+"You are extremely comprehensible!" said Galen, pursing up his lips.
+
+"You will obey?"
+
+"I must," said Galen.  But he did not say whether he would obey her or
+his inclination.  Pertinax, eyeing him doubtfully, seemed torn between
+suspicion of him and respect for long-tried friendship.
+
+"May we depend on you?" he asked.  He laid a hand on Galen's shoulder,
+bending over him.
+
+"I am an old man," Galen answered.  "In any event I have not long to
+live.  I will do my best--for you."
+
+Pertinax nodded, but there was still a question in his mind.  He bade
+farewell to Marcia, turning his back toward Galen.  Marcia whispered:
+
+"Be a man now, Pertinax!  If we should lose this main, we two can drink
+the stuff that Galen brings."
+
+"There was a falling star last night," said Pertinax.  "Whose was it?"
+
+Marcia studied his face a moment.  Then:
+
+"There will be a rising sun tomorrow!" she retorted.  "Whose will it be?
+Yours!  Play the man!"
+
+
+
+
+XI.  GALEN
+
+
+
+Galen's house was one he rented from a freedman of the emperor--a wise
+means of retaining favor at the palace.  Landlords having influence were
+careful to protect good tenants.  Furthermore, whoever rented, rather
+than possessed, escaped more easily from persecution.  Galen, like
+Tyanan Apollonius, reduced his private needs, maintaining that
+philosophy went hand in hand with medicine, but wealth with neither.
+
+It was a pleasant little house, not far away from Cornificia's, within a
+precinct that was rebuilt after all that part of Rome burned under
+Nero's fascinated gaze.  The street was crescent-shaped, not often
+crowded, though a score of passages like wheel-spokes led to it;  and to
+the rear of Galen's house was a veritable maze of alleys.  There were
+two gates to the house: one wide, with decorated posts, that faced the
+crescent street, where Galen's oldest slave sat on a stool and blinked
+at passers-by;  the other narrow, leading from a little high-walled
+courtyard at the rear into an alley between stables in which milch-asses
+were kept.  That alley led into another where a dozen midwives had their
+names and claims to excellency painted on the doors--an alley carefully
+to be avoided, because women of that trade, like barbers, vied for
+custom by disseminating gossip.
+
+So Sextus used a passage running parallel to that one, leading between
+workshops where the burial-urn makers' slaves engraved untruthful
+epitaphs in baked clay or inlaid them on the marble tomb-slabs--to be
+gilded presently with gold-leaf (since a gilded lie, though costlier, is
+no worse than the same lie unadorned.)
+
+He drummed a signal with his knuckles on the panel of a narrow door of
+olive-wood, set deep into the wall under a projecting arch.  An
+overleaning tree increased the shadow, and a visitor could wait without
+attracting notice.  A slave nearly as old as Galen presently admitted
+him into a paved yard in which a fish-pond had been built around an
+ancient well.  A few old fruit-trees grew against the wall, and there
+were potted shrubs, but little evidence of gardening, most of Galen's
+slaves being too old for that kind of work.  There were a dozen of them
+loafing in the yard;  some were so fat that they wheezed, and some so
+thin with age that they resembled skeletons.  There was a rumor that the
+fatness and the thinness were accounted for by Galen's fondness for
+experiments.  Old Galen had a hundred jealous rivals and they even said
+he fed the dead slaves to the fish;  but it was Roman custom to give no
+man credit for humaneness if an unclean accusation could be made to
+stick.
+
+Another fat old slave led Sextus to a porch behind the house and through
+that to a library extremely bare of furniture but lined with shelves on
+which rolled manuscripts were stacked in tagged and numbered order;
+they were dusty, as if Galen used them very little nowadays.  There were
+two doors in addition to the one that opened on the porch;  the old
+slave pointed to the smaller one and Sextus, stooping and turning
+sidewise because of the narrowness between the posts, went down a step
+and entered without knocking.
+
+For a moment he could not see Galen, there was such confusion of shadow
+and light.  High shelves around the walls of a long, shed-like room were
+crowded with retorts and phials.  An enormous, dusty human skeleton,
+articulated on concealed wire, moved as if annoyed by the intrusion.
+There were many kinds of skulls of animals and men on brackets fastened
+to the wall, and there were jars containing dead things soaked in
+spirit.  Some of the jars were enormous, having once held olive oil.  On
+a table down the midst were instruments, a scale for weighing chemicals,
+some measures and a charcoal furnace with a blow-pipe;  and across the
+whole of one end of the room was a system of wooden pigeon-holes,
+stacked with chemicals and herbs, for the most part wrapped in
+parchment.
+
+Sunlight streaming through narrow windows amid dust of drugs and spices
+made a moving mystery;  the room seemed under water. Galen, stooping
+over a crucible with an unrolled parchment on the table within reach,
+was not distinguishable until he moved;  when he ceased moving he faded
+out again, and Sextus had to go and stand where he could touch him, to
+believe that he was really there.
+
+"You told me you had ceased experiments."
+
+"I lied.  The universe is an experiment," said Galen.  "Such gods as
+there are perhaps are looking to evolve a decent man, or possibly a
+woman, from the mess we see around us.  Let us hope they fail."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"There appears to be hope in failure.  Should the gods fail, they will
+still be gods and go on trying.  If they ever made a decent man or woman
+all the rest of us would turn on their creation and destroy it.  Then
+the gods would turn into devils and destroy us."
+
+"What has happened to you, Galen?  Why the bitter mood?"
+
+"I discover I am like the rest of you--like all Rome.  At my age such a
+discovery makes for bitterness."  For a minute or two Galen went on
+scraping powder from the crucible, then suddenly he looked up at Sextus,
+stepping backward so as to see the young man's face more clearly in a
+shaft of sunlight.
+
+"Did you send that Christian into the tunnel to kill Commodus?" he
+asked.
+
+"I?  You know me better than that, Galen!  When the time comes to slay
+Commodus--but is Commodus dead?  Speak, don't stand there looking at me!
+Speak, man!"
+
+Galen appeared satisfied.
+
+"No, not Commodus.  The blow miscarried.  Somebody slew Nasor.  A
+mistake.  A coward's blow.  If you had been responsible--"
+
+"When--if--I slay, it shall be openly with my own hand," said Sextus.
+"Not I alone, but Rome herself must vomit out that monster.  Why are you
+vexed?"
+
+"That wanton blow that missed its mark has stripped some friends of mine
+too naked.  It has also stripped me and revealed me to myself.  Last
+night I saw a falling star--a meteor that blazed out of the night and
+vanished."
+
+"I, too," said Sextus.  "All Rome saw it.  The cheap sorcerers are doing
+a fine trade.  They declare it portends evil."
+
+"Evil--but for whom?"  Old Galen poured the powder he had scraped into a
+dish and blinked at him.  "Affiliations in the realm of substance are
+confined to like ingredients.  That law is universal.  Like seeks like,
+begetting its own like.  As for instance, sickness flows in channels of
+unwholesomeness, like water seeping through a marsh.  Evil?  What is
+evil but the likeness of a deed--its echo--its result--its aftermath?
+You see this powder?  Marcia has ordered me to poison Commodus!  What
+kind of aftermath should that deed have?"
+
+Sextus stared at him astonished.  Galen went on mixing.
+
+"Colorless it must be--flavorless--without smell--indetectible. These
+saviors of Rome prepare too much to save themselves!  And I take trouble
+to save myself.  Why?"
+
+He stopped and blinked again at Sextus, waiting for an answer.
+
+"You are worth preserving, Galen."
+
+"I dispute that.  I am sentimental, which is idiocy in a man of my age.
+But I will not kill him who is superior to any man in Rome."
+
+"Idiocy?  You?  And you admire that monster?"
+
+"As a monster, yes.  He is at least wholehearted.  As a monster he lacks
+neither strength of will nor sinew nor good looks;  he is magnificent;
+he has the fear, the frenzy and the resolution of a splendid animal.  We
+have only cowardice, the unenthusiasm and the indecision of base men.
+If we had the virtue of Commodus, no Commodus could ever have ruled Rome
+for half a day. But I am senile.  I am sentimental.  Rather than betray
+Marcia--and Pertinax--who would betray me for their own sakes;  rather
+than submit my own old carcass to the slave whom Marcia would send to
+kill me, I am doing what you see."
+
+"Poison for Commodus?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not for yourself, Galen?"
+
+"No."
+
+"For whom then?"
+
+"For Pertinax."
+
+Sextus seized the plate on which the several ingredients were being
+mixed.
+
+"Put that down," said Galen.  "I will poison part of him--the mean
+part."
+
+"Speak in plain words, Galen!"
+
+"I will slay his indecision.  He and Marcia propose;  that I shall kill
+their monster.  I shall mix a draught for Marcia to take to him--in case
+this, and in case that, and perhaps.  In plain words, Commodus has sent
+for Livius and none knows how much Livius has told.  Their monster
+writes and scratches out and rewrites long proscription lists, and
+Marcia trembles for her Christians.  For herself she does not tremble.
+She has ten times Pertinax' ability to rule.  If Marcia were a man she
+should be emperor!  Our Pertinax is hesitating between inertia and doubt
+and dread of Cornificia's ambition for him;  between admiration of his
+own wife and contempt for her;  between the subtleties of auguries and
+common sense;  between trust and mistrust of us all, including Marcia
+and you and me;  between the easy dignity of being governor of Rome and
+the uneasy palace--slavery of being Caesar;  between doubt of his own
+ability to rule and the will to restore the republic."
+
+"We all know Pertinax," said Sextus.  "He is diffident, that is all.  He
+is modest.  Once he has made his decision--"
+
+Galen interrupted him
+
+"Then let us pray the gods to make the rest of us immodest!  The
+decision that he makes is this:  If Commodus has heard of the
+conspiracy;  if Commodus intends to kill him, he will then allow
+somebody else to kill Commodus!  He will permit me, who am a killer only
+by professional mistake and not by intention, to be made to kill my
+former pupil with a poisoned drink!  You understand, not even then will
+Pertinax take resolution by the throat and do his own work."
+
+"So Pertinax shall drink this?"
+
+"It is meant that Commodus shall drink it.  That is, unless Commodus
+emerges from his sulks too soon and butchers all of us--as we deserve!"
+
+"Have done with riddles, Galen!  How will that affect Pertinax, except
+to make him emperor?"
+
+"Nothing will make him emperor unless he makes himself," said Galen.
+"You will know tonight.  We lack a hero, Sextus.  All conspirators
+resemble rats that gnaw and run, until one rat at last discovers himself
+Caesar of the herd by accident.  Caius Julius Caesar was a hero.  He was
+one mind bold and above and aloof.  He saw.  He considered.  He took.
+His murderers were all conspirators, who ran like rats and turned on one
+another.  So are we!  Can you imagine Caius Julius Caesar threatening an
+old philosopher like me with death unless he mixed the poison for a
+woman to take to his enemy's bedside?  Can you imagine the great Julius
+hesitating to destroy a friend or spare an enemy?"
+
+"Do you mean, they strike tonight, and haven't warned me?"
+
+"I have warned you."
+
+"Marcia has been prepared these many days to kill me if I meant to
+strike," said Sextus.  "I can understand that;  it is no more than a
+woman's method to protect her bully.  She accuses and defends him, fears
+and loves him, hates him and hates more the man who sets her free.  But
+Pertinax--did he not bid you warn me?"
+
+"No," said Galen.  "Are you looking for nobility?  I tell you there is
+nothing noble in conspiracies.  Pertinax and Marcia have used you.  They
+will try to use me.  They will blame me.  They will certainly blame you.
+I advise you to run to your friends in the Aventine Hills.  Thence
+hasten out of Italy.  If Pertinax should fail and Commodus survives this
+night--"
+
+"No, Galen.  He must not fail!  Rome needs Pertinax.  That poison--
+phaugh!  Is no sword left in Rome?  Has Pertinax no iron in him?  Better
+one of Marcia's long pins than that unmanly stuff.  Where is Narcissus?"
+
+"I don't know," said Galen.  "Narcissus is another who will do well to
+protect himself.  Commodus is well disposed toward him. Commodus might
+send for him--as he will surely send for me if belly-burning sets in.
+He and I would make a good pair to be blamed for murdering an emperor."
+
+"You run!" urged Sextus.  "Go now!  Go to my camp in the Aventines.  You
+will find Norbanus and two freedmen waiting near the Porta Capena;  they
+are wearing farmers' clothes and look as if they came from Sicily.  They
+know you.  Say I bade them take you into hiding."
+
+Galen smiled at him.  "And you?" he asked.
+
+"Narcissus shall smuggle me into the palace.  It is I who will slay
+Commodus, lest Pertinax should stain his hands.  If they prefer to turn
+on me, what matter?  Pertinax, if he is to be Caesar, will do better not
+to mount the throne all bloody.  Let him blame me and then execute me.
+Rome will reap the benefit. Marcia has the praetorian guard well under
+control, what with her bribes and all the license she has begged for
+them.  Let Marcia proclaim that Pertinax is Caesar, the praetorian guard
+will follow suit, and the senate will confirm it so soon after daybreak
+that the citizens will find themselves obeying a new Caesar before they
+know the old one is dead!  Then let Pertinax make new laws and restore
+the ancient liberties.  I will die happy."
+
+"O youth--insolence of youth!" said Galen, smiling.  He resumed his
+mixing of the powders, adding new ingredients.  "I was young once--young
+and insolent.  I dared to try to tutor Commodus!  But never in my long
+life was I insolent enough to claim all virtue for myself and bid my
+elders go and hide!  You think you will slay Commodus?  I doubt it."
+
+"How so?"
+
+Sextus was annoyed.  The youth in him resented that his altruism should
+be mocked.
+
+"Pertinax should do it," Galen answered.  "If Rome needed no more than
+philosophy and grammar, better make me Caesar!  I was mixing my
+philosophy with surgery and medicine while Pertinax was sucking at his
+mother's breast in a Ligurian hut. Rome, my son, is sick of too much
+mixed philosophy.  She needs a man of iron--a riser to occasion--a
+cutter of Gordian knots, precisely as a sick man needs a surgeon.  The
+senate will vote, as you say, at the praetorian guard's dictation.  You
+have been clever, my Sextus, with your stirring of faction against
+faction.  They are mean men, all so full of mutual suspicion as to heave
+a huge sigh when they know that Pertinax is Caesar, knowing he will
+overlook their plotting and rule without bloodshed if that can be done.
+But it can't be!  Unless Pertinax is man enough to strike the blow that
+shall restore the ancient liberties, then he is better dead before he
+tries to play the savior!  We have a tyrant now.  Shall we exchange him
+for a weak-kneed theorist?"
+
+"Are you ready to die, Galen?"
+
+"Why not?  Are you the only Roman?  I am not so old I have no virtue
+left.  A little wisdom comes with old age, Sextus.  It is better to live
+for one's country than to die for it, but since no way has been invented
+of avoiding death, it is wiser to die usefully than like a sandal thrown
+on to the rubbish-heap because the fashion changes."
+
+"I wish you would speak plainly, Galen.  I have told you all my secrets.
+You have seen me risk my life a thousand times in the midst of Commodus'
+informers, coming and going, interviewing this and that one, urging
+here, restraining there, denying myself even hope of personal reward.
+You know I have been whole-hearted in the cause of Pertinax.  Is it
+right, in a crisis, to put me off with subtleties?"
+
+"Life is subtle.  So is virtue.  So is this stuff," Galen answered,
+poking at the mixture with a bronze spoon.  "Every man must choose his
+own way in a crisis.  Some one's star has fallen. Commodus'?  I think
+not.  That star blazed out of obscurity, and Commodus is not obscure.
+Mine?  I am unimportant;  I shall make no splendor in the heavens when
+my hour comes.  Marcia's?  Is she obscure?  Yours?  You are like me, not
+born to the purple;  when a sparrow dies, however diligently he has
+labored in the dirt, no meteors announce his fall.  No, not Maternus,
+the outlaw, to say nothing of Sextus, the legally dead man, can command
+such notice from the sky.  That meteor was some one's who shall blaze
+into fame and then die."
+
+"Dark words, Galen!"
+
+"Dark deeds!" the old man answered.  "And a path to be chosen in
+darkness!  Shall I poison the man whom I taught as a boy?  Shall I
+refuse, and be drowned in the sewer by Marcia's slaves?  Shall I betray
+my friends to save my own old carcass?  Shall I run away and hide, at my
+age, and live hounded by my own thoughts, fearful of my shadow, eating
+charity from peasants?  I can easily say no to all those things.  What
+then?  It is not what a man does not, but what he does that makes him or
+unmakes him.  There is nothing left but subtlety, my Sextus.  What will
+you do?  Go and do it now.  Tomorrow may be too late."
+
+Sextus shrugged his shoulders, baffled and irritated.  He had always
+looked to Galen for advice in a predicament.  It was Galen, in fact, who
+had kept him from playing much more than the part of a spy-listening,
+talking, suggesting, but forever doing nothing violent.
+
+"You know as well as I do, there is nothing ready," he retorted. "Long
+ago I could have had a thousand armed men waiting for a moment such as
+this to rally behind Pertinax.  But I listened to you--"
+
+"And are accordingly alive, not crucified!" said Galen.  "The praetorian
+guard is well able to slaughter any thousand men, to uphold Commodus or
+to put Pertinax in the place of Commodus. Your thousand men would only
+decorate a thousand gibbets, whether Pertinax should win or lose.  If he
+should win, and become Caesar, he would have to make them an example of
+his love of law and order, proving his impartiality by blaming them for
+what he never invited them to do.  For mark this:  Pertinax has never
+named himself as Commodus' successor.  I warn you:  there is far less
+safety for his friends than for his enemies, unless he, with his own
+hand, strikes the blow that makes him emperor."
+
+"If Marcia should do it--?"
+
+"That would be the end of Marcia."
+
+"If I should do it?"
+
+"That would be the end of you, my Sextus."
+
+"Let us say farewell, then, Galen!  This right hand shall do it. It will
+save my friends.  It will provide a culprit on whom Pertinax may lay the
+blame.  He will ascend the throne unguilty of his predecessor's blood--"
+
+"And you?" asked Galen.
+
+"I will take my own life.  I will gladly die when I have ridded Rome of
+Commodus."
+
+He paused, awaiting a reply, but Galen appeared almost rudely
+unconcerned.
+
+"You will not say farewell?"
+
+"It is too soon," Galen answered, folding up his powder in a sheet of
+parchment, tying it, at great pains to arrange the package neatly.
+
+"Will you not wish me success?"
+
+"That is something, my Sextus, that I have no powders for.  I have
+occasionally cured men.  I can set most kinds of fractures with
+considerable skill, old though I am.  And I can divert a man's attention
+sometimes, so that he lets nature heal him of mysterious diseases.  But
+success is something you have already wished for and have already made
+or unmade.  What you did, my Sextus, is the scaffolding of what you do
+now;  this, in turn, of what you will do next.  I gave you my advice.  I
+bade you run away--in which case I would bid you farewell, but not
+otherwise."
+
+"I will not run."
+
+"I heard you."
+
+"And you said you are sentimental, Galen!"
+
+"I have proved it to you.  If I were not, I myself would run!"
+
+Galen led the way out of the room into the hall where the mosaic floor
+and plastered walls presented colored temple scenes--priests burning
+incense at the shrine of Aesculapius, the sick and maimed arriving and
+the cured departing, giving praise.
+
+"There will be no hero left in Rome when they have slain our Roman
+Hercules," said Galen.  "He has been a triton in a pond of minnows.  You
+and I and all the other little men may not regret him afterward, since
+heroes, and particularly mad ones, are not madly loved.  But we will not
+enjoy the rivalry of minnows."
+
+He led Sextus to the porch and stood there for a minute holding to his
+arm.
+
+"There will be no rivals who will dare to raise their heads," said
+Sextus, "once our Pertinax has made his bid for power."
+
+"But he will not," Galen answered.  "He will hesitate and let others do
+the bidding.  Too many scruples!  He who would govern an empire might
+better have fetters on feet and hands!  Now go. But go not to the palace
+if you hope to see a heroism--or tomorrow's dawn!"
+
+
+
+
+XII.-LONG LIVE CAESAR!
+
+
+
+That night it rained.  The wind blew yelling squalls along the streets.
+At intervals the din of hail on cobble-stones and roofs became a
+stinging sea of sound.  The wavering oil lanterns died out one by one
+and left the streets in darkness in which now and then a slave-borne
+litter labored like a boat caught spreading too much sail.  The
+overloaded sewers backed up and made pools of foulness, difficult to
+ford.  Along the Tiber banks there was panic where the river-boats were
+plunging and breaking adrift on the rising flood and miserable, drenched
+slaves labored with the bales of merchandize, hauling the threatened
+stuff to higher ground.
+
+But the noisiest, dismalest place was the palace, the heart of all Rome,
+where the rain and hail dinned down on marble.  There was havoc in the
+clumps of ornamental trees--crashing of pots blown down from balconies--
+thunder of rent awnings and the splashing of countless cataracts where
+overloaded gutters spilled their surplus on mosaic pavement fifty or a
+hundred feet below. No light showed, saving at the guard-house by the
+main gate, where a group of sentries shrugged themselves against the
+wall--ill-tempered, shivering, alert.  However mutinous a Roman army, or
+a legion, or a guard might be, its individuals were loyal to the routine
+work of military duty.
+
+A decurion stepped out beneath a splashing arch, the lamplight gleaming
+on his wetted bronze and crimson.
+
+"Narcissus?  Yes, I recognize you.  Who is this?" Narcissus and Sextus
+were shrouded in loose, hooded cloaks of raw wool, under which they
+hugged a change of footgear.  Sextus had his face well covered.
+Narcissus pushed him forward under the guard-room arch, out of the rain.
+
+"This is a man from Antioch, whom Caesar told me to present to him," he
+said.  "I know him well.  His names is Marius."
+
+"I have no orders to admit a man of that name." Narcissus waxed
+confidential.
+
+"Do you wish to get both of us into trouble?" he asked.  "You know
+Caesar's way.  He said bring him and forgot, I suppose, to tell his
+secretary to write the order for admission.  Tonight he will remember my
+speaking to him about this expert with a javelin, and if I have to tell
+him--"
+
+"Speak with the centurion."
+
+The decurion beckoned them into the guard-house, where a fire burned in
+a bronze tripod, casting a warm glow on walls hung with shields and
+weapons.  A centurion, munching oily seed and wiping his mouth with the
+back of his hand, came out of an inner office. He was not the type that
+had made Roman arms invincible.  He lacked the self-reliant dignity of
+an old campaigner, substituting for it self-assertiveness and flashy
+manners.  He was annoyed because he could not get the seed out of his
+mouth with his finger in time to look aristocratic.
+
+"What now, Narcissus?  By Bacchus, no!  No irregularities tonight!  The
+very gods themselves are imitating Caesar's ill-humor!  Who is it you
+have brought?"
+
+Narcissus beckoned the centurion toward the corner, between fire and
+wall, where he could whisper without risk of being overheard.
+
+"Marcia told me to bring this man tonight in hope of making Caesar
+change his mood.  He is a javelin-thrower--an expert."
+
+"Has he a javelin under the cloak?" the centurion asked suspiciously.
+
+"He is unarmed, of course.  Do you take us for madmen?"
+
+"All Rome is mad tonight," said the centurion, "or I wouldn't be arguing
+with a gladiator!  Tell me what you know.  A sentry said you saw the
+death of Pavonius Nasor.  All the sentries who were in the tunnel at the
+time are under lock and key, and I expect to be ordered to have the poor
+devils killed to silence them.  And now Bultius Livius--have you heard
+about it?"
+
+"I have heard Caesar sent for him."
+
+"Well, if Caesar has sent for this friend of yours, he had better first
+made sacrifices to his gods and pray for something better than befell
+poor Livius!  Yourself too!  They say Livius is being racked--doubtless
+to make him tell more than he knows.  I smell panic in the air.  With
+all these palace slaves coming and going you can't check rumor and I'll
+wager there is already an exodus from Rome.  Gods!  What a night for
+travel!  Morning will see the country roads all choked with the
+conveyances of bogged up senators!  Let us pray this friend of yours may
+soften Caesar's mood.  Where is his admission paper?"
+
+"As I told the decurion, I have none."
+
+"That settles it then;  he can't enter.  No risks--not when I know the
+mood our Commodus is in!  The commander might take the responsibility,
+but not I."
+
+"Where is he?" asked Narcissus.
+
+"Where any lucky fellow is on such a night--in bed.  I wouldn't dare to
+send for him for less than riots, mutiny and all Rome burning!  Let your
+man wait here.  Go you into the palace and get a written permit for
+him."
+
+But nothing was more probable than that such a permit would be
+unobtainable.
+
+Sextus stepped into the firelight, pulling back the hood to let the
+centurion see his face.
+
+"By Mars' red plume!  Are you the man they call Maternus?"
+
+Sextus retorted with a challenge:
+
+"Now will you send for your commander?  He knows me well."
+
+"Dioscuri!  Doubtless!  Probably you robbed him of his purse!  By
+Romulus and Remus, what is happening to Rome?  That falling star last
+night portended, did it, that a highwayman should dare to try to enter
+Caesar's palace!  Ho there, decurion!  Bring four men!"
+
+The decurion clanked in.  His men surrounded Sextus at a gesture.
+
+"I ought to put you both in cells," said the centurion.  "But you shall
+have a chance to justify yourself, Narcissus.  Go on in. Bring Caesar's
+written order to release this man Maternus--if you can!"
+
+Narcissus, like all gladiators, had been trained in facial control lest
+an antagonist should be forewarned by his expression.  Nevertheless, he
+was hard put to it to hide the fear that seized him.  He supposed not
+even Marcia would dare openly to come to Sextus' rescue.
+
+"That man is my only friend," he said.  "Let me have word with him
+first."
+
+"Not one word!"
+
+The centurion made a gesture with his head.  The guards took Sextus by
+the arms and marched him out into the night, he knowing better than to
+waste energy or arouse anger by resisting.
+
+"Then I will go to the commander!  I go straight to him," Narcissus
+stammered.  "Idiot!  Don't you know that Marcia protects Maternus?
+Otherwise, how should an outlaw whose face is so well known that you
+recognized him instantly--how should he dare to approach the palace?"
+
+The centurion touched his forehead.
+
+"Mad, I daresay!  Go on in.  Get Marcia's protection for him. Bring me
+her command in writing!  Wait, though--let me look at you."
+
+He made Narcissus throw his heavy cloak off, clean his legs and change
+into his other foot-gear.  Then he examined his costume.
+
+"Even on a night like this they'd punish me for letting a man pass who
+wasn't dressed right.  Let me see, you're not free yet; you don't have
+to wear a toga.  I spend half my days teaching clodhoppers how to fold
+hired togas properly behind the neck. It's the only way you can tell a
+slave from a citizen these days! The praetorian guard ought to be
+recruited from the tailors' shops!  Lace up your sandal properly.  Now--
+any weapons underneath that tunic?"
+
+Sullenly Narcissus held his arms up and submitted to be searched. He
+usually came and went unchallenged, being known as one of Caesar's
+favorites, but the centurion's suspicions were aroused. They were almost
+confirmed a moment later.  The decurion returned and laid a long, lean
+dagger on the table.
+
+"Taken from the prisoner," he reported.  "It was hidden beneath his
+tunic.  He looks desperate enough to kill himself, so I left two men to
+keep an eye on him."
+
+The centurion scratched his chin again, his mouth half-open.
+
+"Whom do you propose to visit in the palace?" he demanded.
+
+"Marcia," said Narcissus.
+
+The centurion turned to the decurion.
+
+"Go you with him.  Hand him over to the hall-attendants.  Bid them pass
+him from hand to hand into Marcia's presence.  Don't return until you
+have word he has reached her."
+
+To all intents and purposes a prisoner, Narcissus was marched along the
+mosaic pavement of a bronze-roofed colonnade, whose marble columns
+flanked the approach to the palace steps. Drenched guards, posted near
+the eaves where water splashed on them clanged their shields in darkness
+as the decurion passed; there was not a square yard of the palace
+grounds unwatched.
+
+There was a halt beside the little marble pavilion near the palace
+steps, where the decurion turned Narcissus over to an attendant in
+palace uniform, but no comment;  the palace was too used to seeing
+favorites of one day in disgrace the next.
+
+Within the palace there was draughtily lighted gloom, a sensation of
+dread and mysterious restlessness.  The bronze doors leading to the
+emperor's apartments were shut and guards posted outside them who
+demanded extremely definite reasons for admitting any one;  even when
+the centurion's message was delivered some one had to be sent in first
+to find out whether Marcia was willing, and for nearly half an hour
+Narcissus waited, biting his lip with impatience.
+
+When he was sent for at last, and accompanied in, he found Marcia,
+Pertinax and Galen seated unattended in the gorgeous, quiet anteroom
+next to the emperor's bedchamber.  The outer storm was hardly audible
+through the window-shutters, but there was an atmosphere of impending
+climax, like the hush and rumble that precedes eruptions.
+
+Marcia nodded and dismissed the attendant who had brought Narcissus.
+There was a strained look about her eyes, a tightening at the corners of
+the mouth.  Her voice was almost hoarse:
+
+"What is it?  You bring bad news, Narcissus!  What has happened?"
+
+"Sextus has been arrested by the main gate guard!"
+
+Galen came out of a reverie.  Pertinax bit at his nails and looked
+startled;  worry had made him look as old as Galen, but his shoulders
+were erect and he was very splendid in his jeweled full dress.  None
+spoke;  they waited on Marcia, who turned the news over in her mind a
+minute.
+
+"When?  Why?" she asked at last.
+
+"He proposed I should smuggle him in, that he might be of service to
+you.  He was stormy-minded.  He said Rome may need a determined man
+tonight.  But the centurion of the guard recognized him--knew he is
+Maternus.  He refused to summon the commander.  Sextus is locked in a
+cell, and there is no knowing what the guards may do to him.  They may
+try to make him talk. Please write and order him released."
+
+"Yes, order him released," said Pertinax.
+
+But Marcia's strained lips flickered with the vestige of a smile.
+
+"A determined man!" she said, her eyes on Pertinax.  "By morning a
+determined man might give his own commands.  Sextus is safe where he is.
+Let him stay there until you have power to release him!  Go and wait in
+the outer room, Narcissus!"
+
+Narcissus had no alternative.  Though he could sense the climax with the
+marrow of his bones, he did not dare to disobey.  He might have rushed
+into the emperor's bedroom to denounce the whole conspiracy and offer
+himself as bodyguard in the emergency. That might have won Commodus'
+gratitude;  it might have opened up a way for liberating Sextus.  But
+there was irresolution in the air.  And besides, he knew that Sextus
+would reckon it a treason to himself to be made beholden for his life to
+Commodus, nor would he forgive betrayal of his friends, Pertinax, and
+Marcia and Galen.
+
+So Narcissus, who cared only for Sextus, reckoning no other man on earth
+his friend, went and sat beyond the curtains in the smaller, outer room,
+straining his ears to catch the conversation and wondering what tragedy
+the gods might have in store.  As gladiator his philosophy was mixed of
+fatalism, cynical irreverence, a semi-military instinct of obedience,
+short-sightedness and self-will.  He reckoned Marcia no better than
+himself because she, too, was born in slavery--and Pertinax not vastly
+better than himself because he was a charcoal-burner's son.  But it did
+not enter his head just then that he might be capable of making history.
+
+Marcia well understood him.  Knowing that he could not escape to confer
+with the slaves in the corridor, because the door leading to the
+corridor from the smaller anteroom was locked, she was at no pains to
+prevent his overhearing anything.  He could be dealt with either way, at
+her convenience;  a reward might seal his lips, or she could have him
+killed the instant that his usefulness was ended, which was possibly not
+yet.
+
+"Sextus," she said, "must be dealt with.  Pertinax, you are the one who
+should attend to it.  As governor of Rome you can--"
+
+"He is thoroughly faithful," said Pertinax.  "He has been very useful to
+us."
+
+"Yes," said Marcia, "but usefulness has limits.  Time comes when wine
+jars need resealing, else the wine spills.  Galen, go in and see the
+emperor."
+
+Galen shook his head.
+
+"He is a sick man," said Marcia.  "I think he has a fever."
+
+Galen shook his head again.
+
+"I will not have it said I poisoned him."
+
+"Nonsense!  Who knows that you mixed any poison?"
+
+"Sextus, for one," Galen answered.
+
+"Dea dia!  There you are!" said Marcia.  "I tell you, Pertinax, your
+Sextus may prove to be another Livius!  He has been as ubiquitous as the
+plague.  He knows everything.  What if he should turn around and secure
+himself and his estates by telling Commodus all he knows?  It was you
+who trusted Livius.  Do you never learn by your mistakes?"
+
+"We don't know yet what Livius has told," said Pertinax.  "If he had
+been tortured--but he was not.  Commodus slew him with his own hand.  I
+know that is true;  it was told me by the steward of the bedchamber, who
+saw it, and who helped to dispose of the body.  Commodus swore that such
+a creeping spy as Livius, who could be true to nobody but scribbled,
+scribbled, scribbled in a journal all the scandal he could learn in
+order to betray anybody when it suited him, was unfit to live.  I take
+that for a sign that Commodus has had a change of heart.  It was a manly
+thing to slay that wretch."
+
+"He will have a change of governors of Rome before the day dawns!"
+Marcia retorted.  "If it weren't that he might change his mistress at
+the same time--"
+
+"You would betray me--eh?"  Pertinax smiled at her tolerantly.
+
+"No," said Marcia, "I would let you have your own way and be executed!
+You deserve it, Pertinax."  Pertinax stood up and paced the floor with
+hands behind him.
+
+"I will have my own way.  I will have it, Marcia!" he said, calmly,
+coming to a stand in front of her.  "He who plots against his emperor
+may meet the like fate!  If Commodus has no designs against me, then I
+harbor none against him.  I am not sure I am fitted to be Caesar.  I
+have none to rally to me, to rely on, except the praetorian guard, which
+is a two-horned weapon;  they could turn on me as easily and put a man
+of their own choosing on the throne.  And furthermore, I don't wish to
+be Caesar. Glabrio, for instance, is a better man than I am for the
+task.  I will only consent to your desperate course, for the sake of
+Rome, if you can prove to me that Commodus designs a wholesale massacre.
+And even so, if your name and Galen's and mine are not on his
+proscription list--if he only intends, that is, to punish Christians and
+weaken the faction of that Carthaginian Severus, I will observe my oath
+of loyalty.  I will counsel moderation but--"
+
+"You are less than half a man without your mistress!" Marcia exploded.
+"Don't stand trying to impress me with your dignity. I don't believe in
+it!  I will send for Cornificia."
+
+"No, no!" Pertinax showed instant resolution.  "Cornificia shall not be
+dragged in.  The responsibility is yours and mine.  Let us not lessen
+our dignity by involving an innocent woman."
+
+For a moment that made Marcia breathless.  She was staggered by his
+innocence, not his assertion of Cornificia's--bemused by the man's
+ability to believe what he chose to believe, as if Cornificia had not
+been the very first who plotted to make him Caesar.  Cornificia more
+than any one had contrived to suggest to the praetorian guard that their
+interest might best be served some day by befriending Pertinax;  she
+more than any one had disarmed Commodus' suspicion by complaining to him
+about Pertinax' lack of self-assertiveness, which had become Commodus'
+chief reason for not mistrusting him.  By pretending to report to
+Commodus the private doings of Pertinax and a number of other important
+people, Cornificia had undermined Commodus' faith in his secret
+informers who might else have been dangerous.
+
+"Your Cornificia," Marcia began then changed her mind. Disillusionment
+would do no good.  She must play on the man's illusion that he was the
+master of his own will.  "Very well," she went on,  "Yours be the
+decision!  No woman can decide such issues.  We are all in your hands--
+Cornificia and Galen--all of us--aye, and Rome, too--and even Sextus and
+his friends.  But you will never have another such opportunity.  It is
+tonight or never, Pertinax!"
+
+He winced.  He was about to speak, but something interrupted him. The
+great door carved with cupids leading to the emperor's bedchamber opened
+inch by inch and Telamonion came out, closing it softly behind him.
+
+"Caesar sleeps," said the child, "and the wind blew out the lamp. He was
+very cross.  It is dark.  It is cold and lonely in there."
+
+In his hand he held a sheet of parchment, covered with writing and
+creased from his attempts to make a parchment helmet, "Show me," he
+said, holding out the sheet to Marcia.
+
+She took him on her knee and began reading what was written, putting him
+down when he tugged at the parchment to make her show him how to fold
+it. She found him another sheet to play with and told him to take it to
+Pertinax who was a soldier and knew more about helmets.  Then she went
+on reading, clutching at the sheet so tightly that her nails blanched
+white under the dye.
+
+"Pertinax!" she said, shaking the parchment, speaking in a strained
+voice, "this is his final list!  He has copied the names from his
+tablets.  Whose name do you guess comes first?"
+
+Pertinax was playing with Telamonion and did not look at her.
+
+"Severus!" he answered, morbid jealousy, amounting to obsession,
+stirring that cynical hope in him.
+
+"Severus isn't mentioned.  The first six names are in this order: Galen,
+Marcia, Cornificia, Pertinax, Narcissus, Sextus alias Maternus.  Do you
+realize what that means?  It is now or never! Why has he put Galen
+first, I wonder?"
+
+Galen did not appear startled.  His interest was philosophical--
+impersonal.
+
+"I should be first.  I am guiltiest.  I taught him in his youth," he
+remarked, smiling thinly.  "I taught him how to loose the beast that
+lives in him, not intending that, of course, but it is what we do that
+counts.  I should come first!  The state would have been better for the
+death of many a man whom I cured;  but I did not cure Commodus, I
+revealed him to himself, and he fell in love with himself and--"
+
+"Now will you poison him?" said Marcia.
+
+"No," said Galen.  "Let him kill me.  It is better."
+
+"Gods!  Has Rome no iron left?  You, Pertinax!" said Marcia, "Go in and
+kill him!"
+
+Pertinax stood up and stared at her.  The child Telamonion pressed close
+to him holding his righthand, gazing at Marcia.
+
+"Telamonion, go in and play with Narcissus," said Marcia.  She pointed
+at the curtains and the child obeyed.
+
+"Go in and kill him, Pertinax!"  Marcia shook the list of names, then
+stood still suddenly, like a woman frozen, ash-white under the carmine
+on her cheeks.
+
+There came a voice from the emperor's bedroom, more like the roar of an
+angry beast than human speech:
+
+"Marcia!  Do you hear me, Marcia?  By all Olympus--Marcia!"
+
+She opened the door.  The inner room was in darkness.  There came a gust
+of chill wet wind that made all the curtains flutter and there was a
+comfortless noise of cataracts of rain downpouring from the over-loaded
+gutters on to marble balconies.  Then the emperor's voice again:
+
+"Is that you, Marcia?  You leave your Commodus to die of thirst! I
+parch--I have a fever--bring my wine-cup!"
+
+"At once, Commodus."
+
+She glanced at the golden cup on an onyx table.  On a stand beside it
+was an unpierced wine jar set in an enormous bowl of snow.  She looked
+at Pertinax--and shrugged her shoulders, possibly because the wind blew
+through the opened door.  She glanced at Galen.
+
+"If you have a fever, shouldn't I bring Galen?"
+
+"No!" roared Commodus.  "The man might poison me!  Bring me the cup, and
+you fill it yourself!  Make haste before I die of thirst!  Then bring me
+another lamp and dose the shutters!  No slaves--I can't bear the sight
+of them!"
+
+"Instantly, Commodus.  I am coming with it now.  Only wait while I
+pierce the amphora."
+
+She closed the door and looked swiftly once again at Pertinax. He
+frowned over the list of names and did not look at her.  She walked
+straight up to Galen.
+
+"Give me!" she demanded, holding out her hand.  He drew a little
+parchment package from his bosom and she clutched it, saying nothing.
+Galen was the one who spoke:
+
+"Responsibility is his who orders.  May the gods see that it falls where
+it belongs."
+
+She took no notice of his speech but stood for a moment untying the
+strings of the package, frowning to herself, then bit the string through
+and, clutching the little package in her fist, took a gilded tool from
+beside the snow-bowl and pierced the seal of the amphora.  Then she put
+the poison in the bottom of the golden cup and poured the wine--with
+difficulty, since the jar was heavy, but Pertinax, who watched intently,
+made no movement to assist.  She stirred the wine with one of her long
+hair-pins.
+
+"Marcia!" roared Commodus.
+
+"I am coming now."
+
+She went into the bedroom, leaving the door not quite closed behind her.
+Pertinax began to stare at Galen critically.  Galen blinked at him.
+Commodus' voice came very distinctly from the inner room:
+
+"Taste first, Marcia!  Olympus!  I can't see you in the dark. Come
+close.  Are your lips wet?  Let me feel them!"
+
+"I drank a whole mouthful, Commodus.  How hot your hand is! Feel--feel
+the cup--you can feel with your finger how much I have tasted.  I broke
+the seal of a fresh jar of Falernian."
+
+"Some of your Christians might have tampered with it!"
+
+"No, no, Commodus.  That jar has been in the cellar since before you
+were born and the seal was intact.  I washed the cup myself."
+
+"Well, taste again.  Sit here on the bed where I can feel your heart-
+beats."
+
+Presently he gave a gasp and belched, as always after he had swallowed a
+whole cupful at one draught.
+
+"Now close the shutters and bolt them on the inside;  there might be
+some of your Christians lurking on the balcony."
+
+"In this storm, Commodus?  And there are guards on duty."
+
+"Close them, I say!  Who trusts the guards!  Did they guard the tunnel?
+I will rid Rome of all Christians tomorrow!  Aye, and of many another
+reptile!  They have robbed me of my fun in the arena--I will find
+another way to interest myself!  Now bring me a fresh lamp in here, and
+set the tablets by the bed."
+
+She came out, shutting the door behind her, then stood listening. She
+did not tremble.  Her wrist was red where Commodus had held it.
+
+"How long?" she whispered, looking at Galen.
+
+"Only a very little time," he answered.  "How much did you drink?"
+
+She put her hand to her stomach, as if pain had stabbed her.
+
+"Drink pure wine," said Galen.  "Swiftly.  Drink a lot of it."
+
+She went to the amphora.  Before she could reach it there came a roar
+like a furious beast's from the bedroom.
+
+"I am poisoned!  Marcia!  Marcia!  My belly burns!  I am on fire inside!
+I faint!  Marcia!--Marcia!"  Then groans and a great creaking of the
+bed.
+
+Marcia--she was trembling now--drank wine, and Pertinax began to pace
+the floor.
+
+"You, Galen, you had better go in to him," said Marcia.
+
+"If I do go, I must heal him," Galen answered.
+
+The groans in the bedroom ceased.  The shouts began again--terrific
+imprecations--curses hurled at Marcia--the struggles of a strong man in
+the throes of cramp--and, at last, the sound of vomiting.
+
+"If he vomits he will not die!" Marcia exclaimed.  Galen nodded. He
+appeared immensely satisfied--expectant.
+
+"Galen, have you--will that poison kill him?" Marcia demanded.
+
+"No," said Galen.  "Pertinax must kill him.  I promised I would do my
+best for Pertinax.  Behold your opportunity!"
+
+Pertinax strode toward him, clutching at a dagger underneath his tunic.
+
+"Kill me if you wish," said Galen, "but if you have any resolution you
+had better do first what you wanted me to do.  And you will need me
+afterward."
+
+Commodus was vomiting and in the pauses roaring like a mad beast. Marcia
+seized Pertinax by the arm.  "I have done my part," she said.  "Now
+nerve yourself!  Go in now and finish it!"
+
+"He may die yet.  Let us wait and see," said Pertinax.
+
+A howl rising to a scream--terror and anger mingled--came from the
+bedroom;  then again the noise of vomiting and the creaking of the bed
+as Commodus writhed in the spasms of cramp.
+
+"He will feel better presently," said Galen.
+
+"If so, you die first!  You have betrayed us all!"  Pertinax shook off
+Marcia and scowled at Galen, raising his right arm as if about to strike
+the old man.  "False to your emperor!  False to us!"
+
+"And quite willing to die, if first I may see you play the man!" said
+Galen, blinking up at him.
+
+"Hush!" exclaimed Marcia.  "Listen!  Gods!  He is up off the bed! He
+will be in here in a minute!  Pertinax!"
+
+Alarm subsided.  They could hear the thud and creak as Commodus threw
+himself back on the bed--then writhing again and groans of agony.
+Between the spasms Commodus began to frame connected sentences:
+
+"Guards!  Your emperor is being murdered!  Rescue your Commodus!"
+
+"He is recovering," said Galen.
+
+"Give me your dagger!" said Marcia and clutched at Pertinax' tunic,
+feeling for it.
+
+But she was not even strong enough to resist the half-contemptuous shrug
+with which Pertinax thrust her away.
+
+"You disgust me.  There is neither dignity nor decency in this," he
+muttered.  "Nothing but evil can come of it."
+
+"Whose was the star that fell?" asked Galen.
+
+There came more noise from the bedroom.  Commodus seemed to be trying to
+get to his feet again.  Marcia ran toward the smaller anteroom and
+dragged the curtains back.
+
+"Narcissus!"
+
+He came out, carrying Telamonion.  The child lay asleep in his arms.
+
+"Go and put that child down.  Now earn your freedom--go in and kill the
+emperor!  He has poisoned himself, and he thinks we did it.  Give him
+your dagger, Pertinax!"
+
+"I am only a slave," Narcissus answered.  "It is not right that a slave
+should kill an emperor."
+
+Marcia seized the gladiator by the shoulders, scanned his face, saw what
+she looked for and bargained for it instantly.
+
+"Your freedom!  Manumission and a hundred thousand sesterces!"
+
+"In writing!" said Narcissus.
+
+"Dog!" growled Pertinax.  "Go in and do as you are told!"
+
+But Narcissus only grinned at him and squared his shoulders.
+
+"Death means little to a gladiator," he remarked.
+
+"Leave him to me!" ordered Marcia.
+
+"Go and sit down at that table, Pertinax.  Take pen and parchment.  Now
+then--what do you want in writing?  Make haste!"
+
+"Freedom--you may keep your money--I shall not wait to receive it.
+Freedom for me and for Sextus and for all of Sextus' friends and
+freedmen.  An order releasing Sextus from the guard-house instantly.
+Permission to leave Rome and Italy by any route we choose."
+
+"Write, Pertinax!" said Marcia.  Narcissus glanced at Galen.
+
+"Galen," he said, "is one of Sextus' friends, so set his name down."
+
+"Never mind me," said Galen.  "They will need me."
+
+Marcia stood over Pertinax, watching him write.  She snatched the
+document and sanded it, then watched him write the order to the guard,
+releasing Sextus.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed.  "You have your price.  Go in and kill him!
+Give him your dagger, Pertinax."
+
+"I hoped for heroism, not expecting it," said Galen.  "I expected
+cunning.  Is it absent, too?  If he should use a dagger--many men have
+heard me say that Caesar has a tendency to apoplexy--"
+
+"Strangle him!" commanded Marcia.
+
+She thrust the palms of her hands against Narcissus' back and pushed him
+toward the bedroom door, now almost at the end of her reserves of self-
+control.  Her mouth trembled.  She was fighting against hysteria.
+
+"Light!  Lamp!  Guards!" roared Commodus, and again the ebony-posted bed
+creaked under him.  Narcissus stepped into the darkened room.  He left
+the door open, to have light to do his work by, but Marcia closed it,
+clinging to the gilded satyr's head that served for knob with both
+hands, her lips drawn tight against her teeth, her whole face tortured
+with anticipation.
+
+"It is better that a gladiator did it," remarked Pertinax, attempting to
+look calm.  "I never killed a man.  As general, and as governor of Rome,
+as consul and proconsul, I have spared whom I might.  Some had to die
+but--my own hands are clean."
+
+There came an awful sound of struggle from the inner room.  A monstrous
+roar was shut off suddenly, half-finished, smothered under bedclothes.
+Then the bed-frame cracked under the strain of Titans fighting--cracked
+--creaked--and utter silence fell.  It lasted several minutes. Then the
+door opened and Narcissus came striding out.
+
+"He was strong," he remarked.  "Look at this."
+
+He bared his arm and showed where Commodus had gripped him;  the lithe
+muscle looked as if it had been gripped in an iron vise. He chafed it,
+wincing with pain.
+
+"Go in and observe that I have taken nothing.  Don't be afraid," he
+added scornfully.  "He fought like the god that he was, but he died--"
+
+"Of apoplexy," Galen interrupted.  "That is to say, of a surging of
+blood to the brain and a cerebral rupture.  It is fortunate you have a
+doctor on the scene who knew of his liability to--"
+
+"We must go and see," said Marcia.  "Come with me, Pertinax. Then we
+must tidy the bed and make haste and summon the officers of the
+praetorian guard.  Let them hear Galen say he died of apoplexy."
+
+She picked up a lamp from the table and Pertinax moved to follow her,
+but Narcissus stepped in his way.
+
+"Ave, Caesar!" he said, throwing up his right hand.
+
+"You may go," said Pertinax.  "Go in silence.  Not a word to a soul in
+the corridors.  Leave Rome.  Leave Italy.  Take Sextus with you."
+
+"You will let him go?" asked Marcia.  "Pertinax, what will become of
+you?  Send to the guard at the gate and command them to seize him!
+Sextus and Narcissus--"
+
+"Have my promise!" he retorted.  "If the fates intend me to be Caesar,
+it shall not be said I slew the men who set me on the throne."
+
+"You are Caesar," she answered.  "How long will you last?  All omens
+favored you--the murder in the tunnel--now this storm, like a veil to
+act behind, and--"
+
+"And last night a falling star!" said Galen.  "Give me parchment. I will
+write the cause of death.  Then let me go too, or else kill me.  I am no
+more use.  This is the second time that I have failed to serve the world
+by tutoring a Caesar.  Commodus the hero, and now you the--"
+
+"Silence!" Marcia commanded.  "Or even Pertinax may rise above his
+scruples!  Write a death certificate at once, and go your way and follow
+Sextus!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Caesar Dies, by Talbot Mundy
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