Palus was even more spectacular as a dimachaerus, so called from having two sabers, for a dimachaerus is a gladiator accoutred as a Thracian, but without any shield and carrying a naked saber in each hand. Such a fighter is customarily matched against an adversary in ordinary Thracian equipment. He has to essay the unnatural feat of guarding himself with one sword while attacking with the other. Such a feat is akin to those of jugglers and acrobats, for a sword is essentially an instrument of assault and cannot, by its very nature, take the place of a shield as a protection. Everybody, of course, knows that showy and startling ruse said to have been invented by the Divine Julius, which consists in surprising one's antagonist by parrying a stroke with the sword instead of with the shield and simultaneously using the shield as a weapon, striking its upper rim against the adversary's chin. But this can succeed only against an opponent dull-witted, unwary, clumsy and slow, and then as a surprise. A dimachaerus has to depend on parrying and his antagonist knows what to expect.

Palus was the most perfect dimachaerus ever seen in the Colosseum. Without a shield he fought and killed many Thracians, Greeks, Gauls, murmillos, Samnites and secutors. He even, many times, fought two Thracians at once, killing both and coming off unscathed. I saw two of these exhibitions of insane self-confidence and I must say that Palus made good his reliance on his incredible skill. He pivoted about between his adversaries, giving them, apparently, every chance to attack simultaneously, distract him and kill him. Yet he so managed that, even if their thrusts appeared simultaneous, there was between them an interval, brief as a heart-beat, but long enough for him to dispose of one and turn on the other, or escape one and pierce the other. I could not credit my own eyes. With my belief as to the identity of Palus I marvelled that a man whose life was dominated by the dread of assassination, who feared poison in his wine and food, who hedged himself about with guards and then feared the guards themselves, who distrusted everybody, who dreaded every outing, who was uneasy even inside his Palace, felt perfectly at ease and serenely safe in the arena with no defence but two sabers, and he between two hulking ruffians, as fond of life as any men, and knowing that they must kill him or be killed by him. In this deadly game he felt no qualms, only certitude of easy victory.

The controversies over the identity of Palus have produced a whole literature of pamphlets, some maintaining that he was Commodus, others professing to prove that he was not, of which some rehearse every possible theory of his relationship to Aurelius or Faustina. Among these the most amazing are those which set forth the view that Palus was Commodus, but no skillful swordsman, rather a brazen sham, killing ingloriously helpless adversaries who could oppose to his edged steel only swords of lath or lead.

This absurdity is in conflict with all the facts. Manifestly the antagonists of Palus were as well armed as he, both for defence and attack.

And, what is much more, the populace clamored for Palus, booed and cat- called if Palus did not appear in the arena; cheered him to the echo when he did appear; yelled with delight and appreciation at each exhibition of his prophetic intuition as to what his adversary was about to do, of his preternaturally perfect judgment as to what to do himself, of the instantaneous execution of whatever movement he purposed, of its complete success; and applauded him while he went off as no other gladiator ever was applauded. It was the popular demand for him which made possible and justified the unexampled fee paid Palus for each of his appearances in the arena. The managers of the games were obliged to include Palus in each exhibition or risk a riot of the indignant populace.

Now no sham fighter could fool the Roman populace. A make-believe swordsman, such as the pamphlets which I have cited allege Commodus to have been, might, if Emperor, have overawed the senators and nobles of equestrian rank and compelled their unwilling applause of sham feats. But no man, not even an Emperor, could coerce the Roman proletariat into applauding a fighter unworthy of applause. Our populace, once seated to view a show of any kind, cannot be controlled, cannot even be swayed. No fame of any charioteer, beast-fighter or gladiator can win from them tolerance of the smallest error of judgment, defect of action, attempt at foul play or hint of fear: they boo anything of which they disapprove and not Jupiter himself could elicit from them applause of anything except exhibitions of courage, skill, artistry and quickness fine enough to rouse their admiration. They admired Palus, they adored him.

This is well known to all men and proves Palus a consummate artist as a gladiator. Not only would the populace howl a bungler or coward off the sand, they know every shade of excellence; only a superlatively perfect swordsman could kindle their enthusiasm and keep it at white heat year after year as did Palus.

Palus, I may remark, was always a gallant fighter, and a combination of skill and gallantry in an adversary so won his goodwill that he never killed or seriously wounded such an opponent. If his antagonist had an unusually perfect guard and a notably dangerous attack, was handsome, moved gracefully, displayed courage and fought with impeccable fairness Palus felt a liking for him, showed it by the way in which he stood on the defensive and mitigated the deadliness of his attacks, played him longer than usual to demonstrate to all the spectators the qualities he discerned in him, and, when he was convinced that the onlookers felt as he felt, disabled his admired match with some effective but trifling wound.

Then, when his victim collapsed, Palus would leap back from him, sheath his sword, and saw the air with his empty left hand, fingers extended and pressed together, thumb flat against the crack between the roots of the index finger and big finger, twisting his hand about and varying the angle at which he sawed the air, so that all might see that he wished his fallen adversary spared and was suggesting that the spectators nearest him imitate his gesture and give the signal for mercy by extending their arms thumbs flat to fingers.

Except Murmex Lucro I never saw any other gladiator presume to suggest to the spectators which signal he would like them to display; and Murmex had the air of a man taking a liberty with his betters and not very sure whether they would condone his presumption or resent his insolence; whereas Palus waved his arm much as Commodus raised his from the Imperial throne when, as Editor of the games, he decided the fate of a fallen gladiator concerning whom the populace were so evenly divided between disfavorers and favorers that neither the victor nor his lanista dared to interpret so doubtful a mandate.

The most amazing fact concerning Palus was that his audiences never wearied of watching him fence. It is notorious that the spectators in the Colosseum always have been and are, in general, impatient of any noticeable prolongation of a fight. Only a very small minority of the populace and a larger, but still small, minority of the gentry and nobility, take delight in the fine points of swordsmanship for themselves. Most spectators, while acclaiming skilled fence and expecting it, look upon it merely as a means for adding interest to the preliminaries of what they desire to behold. Even senators and nobles admit that the pleasure of viewing gladiatorial shows comes from seeing men killed. Contests are thrilling chiefly because of their suggestion of the approach of the moment which brings the supreme thrill.

The populace, quite frankly, rate the fighting as a bore; they do not come to watch skilled swordsmen fence; they want to see two men face each other and one kill the other at once. It is the killing which they enjoy. The upper tiers of spectators in the amphitheater seldom give the signal for mercy when a defeated man is down and helpless, even though he be handsome and graceful and has fought bravely, skillfully and gallantly. One seldom sees an outstretched arm, with the hand extended, fingers close together and thumb flat against them, raised anywhere from the back seats; their occupants habitually, in such cases, wave their upraised arms with the hands clenched and thumbs extended, waggling their thumbs by half rotating their wrists, to make the thumb more conspicuous, yelling the while, so that the amphitheater is full of their insistent roar and the upper tiers aflash with flickering thumbs. They weigh no fine points as to the worth of the vanquished man, they do not value a good fighter enough to want him saved to fight again, they come to see men die and they want the defeated man slaughtered at once.

They are habituated to acquiescing if the Emperor—or the Editor, if the Prince is not present—or the nobility contravene their wishes and give the signal for mercy when a gallant fighter is down by accident, misadventure or because he was outmatched. But there is often a burst of howls if the signal for mercy comes not from the Imperial Pavilion or the whole podium, but merely from some part of the nobility or senators. Generally, if the Emperor has not given or participated in the signal for mercy, scattered individuals among the proletariat proclaim their disappointment by booing, cat-calls, or strident whistlings.

Now Palus was so popular, so beloved by the slum-dwellers, that whenever he showed a disposition to spare an opponent, the whole mass of the populace were quick with the mercy-signal: the moment they saw Palus sheathe his blade their arms went up with his, almost before his, thumbs as flat as his, never a thumb out nor any fingers clenched.

More than this, no spectator, while Palus played an adversary, ever yelled for a prompt finish to the bout, as almost always happened at the first sign of delay in the case of any other fighter. So comprehensible, so unmistakable, so manifest, so fascinating were the fine points of the swordsmanship displayed by Palus that even the rearmost spectator, even the most brutish lout could and did relish them and enjoy them and crave the continuance of that pleasure.

Most of all the Colosseum audiences not only insisted on Palus appearing in each exhibition, not only longed for his entrance, not merely came to regard all the previous fights of the day as unwelcome postponements of the pleasure of watching Palus fence, but were manifestly impatient for the crowning delight of each day, the ecstacy of beholding a bout between Palus and Murmex Lucro, which contests were always bloodless.



CHAPTER XXXV

MURMEX

Customarily, while Palus flourished, each day began with beast-fights, the noon pause was filled in by exhibitions of athletes, acrobats, jugglers, trained animals and such like, and the surprise; then the gladiatorial shows lasted from early afternoon till an hour before sunset. Palus and Murmex appeared about mid-afternoon and were matched against the victors in the earlier fights. Each located himself at one focus of the ellipse of the arena, at which points two simultaneous fights were best seen by the entire audience. There they began each fight, not simultaneously, but alternately, till all their antagonists were disposed of, most killed and some spared. The spectators seldom hurried Murmex to end a fight; they never hurried Palus. His longest delay in finishing with an adversary, even his manifest intention to exhaust an opponent rather than to wound him, never elicited any protest from any onlooker. All, breathless, fascinated, craned to watch the perfection of his method, every movement of his body, all eyes intent on the point of his matchless blade.

Last of the day's exhibitions, came the fencing match between Palus and Murmex, at the center of the arena, empty save for those two and their two lanistae. All others in the arena, including the surgeons, their helpers and the guards, drew off to positions close under the podium wall.

Murmex and Palus fenced in all sorts of outfits, except that neither ever fought as a retiarius. Mostly both were equipped as secutors, but they fought also as murmillos, Greeks, Gauls, Thracians, Samnites and dimachaeri, or one in any of these equipments against the other in any other.

Sometimes they delighted the populace by donning padded suits liberally whitened with flour or white clay, their murmillos' helmets similarly whitened, and then attacking each other with quarter-staffs of ash, cornel-wood or holly. A hit, of course, showed plainly on the whitened suits. As neither could injure the other in this sort of fight, and as they were willing to humor the populace, each was careless about his guard and reckless in his attack. Even so hits were infrequent, since each, even when most lax, had an instinctive guard superior to that of the most expert and cautious fencer among all other contemporary fighters. Even when, very occasionally, if Palus happened to be in a rollicking mood, each substituted a second quarter-staff for his shield and, as it were, travestied a dimachaerus, as what might be called a two-staff-man or a double-staff-man, hits were still not frequent. Each had a marvellously impregnable defence and they were very evenly matched in the use of the quarter-staff in place of a shield as they were in everything else. Palus fought better with his left hand attacking and his right defending, Murmex better the other way, but each was genuinely ambidextrous and used either hand at will, shifting at pleasure. When, amid the flash of their staffs, either scored, the hit brought a roar of delight from the upper tiers, even from the front rows, for the most dignified senators caught the infection of the general enthusiasm and so far forgot themselves as to yell like street urchins in their ecstasy.

Except in this farcical sort of burlesque fight neither ever scored a hit on the other, in all the years throughout which their combats finished each day of every gladiatorial exhibition. Yet the audience never tired of their bloodless bouts and, while the nobility and gentry never joined in, the populace invariably roared a protest if they saw the lanistae make a move to separate them, and yelled for them to go on and fence longer.

The interest of the populace was caused by the fact, manifest and plain to all, that, while Murmex and Palus loved each other and had no intention of hurting each other, their matches had no appearance whatever of being sham fights. From the first parade until they separated every stroke, feint, lunge and thrust appeared to be in deadly, venomous earnest and each unhurt merely because, mortal as was his adversary's attack, his guard was perfect.

It seemed, in fact, as if each man felt so completely safe, felt so certain that his guard would never fail him, and at the same time felt so sure that his crony's guard was equally faultless, that there was no danger of his injuring his chum, that each attacked the other precisely as he attacked any other adversary. It was commonly declared among expert swordsmen and connoisseurs of sword-play, as among recent spectators, when, talking over the features of an exhibition after it was over, that practically every thrust, lunge or stroke of either in these bouts would have killed or disabled any other adversary; certainly it appeared so to me every time I saw them fence and especially while watching their bouts after I returned from my year at Baiae, for after that I never missed a gladiatorial exhibition in the Colosseum. To my mind Palus and Murmex were manifestly playing with each other, like fox-cubs or Molossian puppies or wolf-cubs; yet the sport so much resembled actual attack and defence, as with nearly grown wolf-cubs, that it gave less the impression of play between friends than that of deadly combat between envenomed foes. Many a time I have heard or overheard some expert or connoisseur or enthusiast or provincial visitor, prophesy somewhat in this fashion:

"Some day one of those two is going to kill the other unexpectedly and unintentionally and by mistake. Each thinks the other will never land on him; each thinks the other has a guard so impregnable that it will never be pierced; each uses on the other attacks so unexpected, so sudden, so subtle, so swift, so powerful, so sustained, so varied that no third man alive could escape any one of them. It is almost a certainty that that sort of thing cannot go on forever. One or the other of them may age sufficiently to retire from the arena, as did Murmex Frugi, safe and unscarred, as he was not. But it is far more likely, since both are full of vitality and vigor, that neither will notice the very gradual approach of age, so that they will go on fighting with eyes undimmed, muscles supple and minds quick, yet not so quick, supple and keen as now: but the preternatural powers of one will wane a bit sooner than those of the other. And sooner or later one will err in his guard and be wounded or killed."

Most spectators agreed with such forecasts. What is more, most of the spectators admitted that, as they watched, each attack seemed certain to succeed; every time either man guarded it seemed as if he must fail to protect himself.

This, I think, explains the unflagging zest with which the entire audience, senators, nobles and commonality, watched their bouts, revelled in them, gloated over the memory of them and longed for more and more. Consciously or unconsciously, every onlooker felt that sometime, some bout would end in the wounding, disabling or death of one of the two. And so perfect was their sword-play, so unfeigned their unmitigated fury of attack, so genuine the impeccable dexterity of their defence that every spectator felt that the supreme thrill, even while so long postponed, was certain to arrive. More, each felt, against his judgment, that it was likely to arrive the next moment. It was this illogical but unescapable sensation which kept the interest of the whole audience, of the whole of every audience, at a white heat over the bouts of Murmex and Palus. I myself experienced this condition of mind and became infected with the common ardor. I found myself rehearsing to myself the incidents of their last-seen bout, anticipating the next, longing for it: though I never had rated myself as ardent over gladiatorial games, but rather as lukewarm towards them, and considered myself much more interested in paintings, statuary, reliefs, ornaments, bric-a-brac, furniture, fine fabrics and all artistries and artisanries. Yet I confessed to myself that, from the time I saw first a bout between them, anticipation of seeing them fence, or enjoyment of it, came very high among my interests and my pleasures.

To some extent, I think, the long and unequaled vogue of their popularity was due to the great variety of their methods and almost complete absence of monotony in their bouts.

Palus was left-handed, but for something like every third bout or a third of each bout he fought right-handed, merely for bravado, as if to advertise that he could do almost as well with the hand less convenient. Murmex was right-handed, but he too fought often left-handed, perhaps one- fifth of the time. So, in whatever equipment, one saw each of them fight both ways. Therefore as murmillos they fought both right-handed, both left-handed, and each right-handed against the other fighting left-handed. This gave a perpetually shifting effect of novelty, surprise and interest to every bout between them. They similarly had four ways of appearing as Greeks, Gauls, Samnites, Thracians, secutors or dimachaeri.

Their bouts as dimachaeri were breathlessly exciting, for it was impossible, from moment to moment, to forecast with which saber either would attack, with which he would guard; and, not infrequently, one attacked and the other guarded with both. When they fought in this fashion Galen, it always appeared to me, looked uneasy, keyed up and apprehensive. Yet neither ever so much as nicked, flicked or scratched the other in their more than sixty bouts with two sabers apiece.

More than a dozen times they appeared as Achilles and Hector, with the old-fashioned, full-length, man-protecting shield, the short Argive sword and the heavy lance, half-pike, half-javelin, of Trojan tradition. Murmex threw a lance almost as far and true as Palus and the emotion of the audience was unmistakably akin to horror when both, simultaneously, hurled their deadly spears so swiftly and so true that it seemed as if neither could avoid the flying death. Palus, true to his nickname, never visibly dodged, though Murmex's aim was as accurate as his own; he escaped the glittering, needle-pointed, razor-edged spear-head by half a hand's-breath or less by an almost imperceptible inclination of his body, made at the last possible instant, when it seemed as if the lance had already pierced him. It was indescribably thrilling to behold this.

Besides fencing equipped as Gauls, Samnites, Thracians and secutors they appeared in every combination of any of these and of Greeks and murmillos with every other. Palus as a dimachaerus against Murmex as a murmillo made a particularly delectable kind of bout. Almost as much so Murmex as a Gaul against Palus as a Thracian. And so without end.

After my return from Baiae Falco pampered me more than ever and, in particular, arranged to take me with him to all amphitheater shows and have me sit beside him in the front row of the nobles immediately behind the boxes of the senators on the podium. This does not sound possible in our later days, when amphitheater regulations are strictly enforced, as they had been under the Divine Aurelius and his predecessors. But, while Commodus was Prince much laxity was rife in all branches of the government. After the orgies of bribe-taking, favoritism and such like in the heyday of Perennis and of Cleander, all classes of our society became habituated to ignoring contraventions of rules. Under Perennis and later under Cleander not a few senators took with them into their boxes favorites who were not only not of senatorial rank, nor even nobles, but not Romans at all: foreign visitors, alien residents of Rome, freedmen or even slaves, and the other senators, as a class exquisitely sensitive to any invasion of their privileges by outsiders, winked at the practice partly because some of them participated in it, much more because they feared to suffer out-and-out ruin, if, by word or look, they incurred the disfavor of Perennis while he was all-powerful or, later, of the more omnipotent Cleander. When a senator saw another so violate propriety, privilege and law, he assumed that the acting Prefect of the Palace had been bribed and so dared not protest or whisper disapprobation.

Much more than the senators the nobles obtained secret license to ignore the rules, or ignored them without license, since, when so many violated the regulations, no one was conspicuous or likely to be brought to book. Falco, being vastly wealthy, probably bribed somebody, but I never knew: when I hinted a query he merely smiled and vowed that we were perfectly safe.

So I sat beside him through that unforgettable December day, at the end of which came the culmination of what I have been describing.

The day was perfect, clear, crisp, mild and windless. It was not cold enough to be chilling, but was cold enough to make completely comfortable a pipe-clayed ceremonial toga over the full daily garments of a noble or senator, so that the entire audience enjoyed the temperature and basked in the brilliant sunrays; for, so late in the year, as the warmth of the sun was sure to be welcome, the awning had not been spread. I, in my bizarre oriental attire, wore my thickest garments and my fullest curled wig and felt neither too cold nor too warm.

I never saw the Colosseum so brilliant a spectacle. It was full to the upper colonnade under the awning-rope poles, not a seat vacant. Spectators were sitting on the steps all up and down every visible stair; two or even three rows on each side of each stair, leaving free only a narrow alley up the middle of each for the passage in or out of attendants or others. Spectators filled the openings of the entrance-stairs, all but jamming each. In each of the cross-aisles spectators stood or crouched against its back-wall, ducking their heads to avoid protests from the luckier spectators in the seats behind them. The upper colonnade was packed to its full capacity with standees.

The program was unusual, gladiatorial exhibitions from the beginning of the show; and nothing else. The morning was full of brisk fights between young men; provincials, foreigners and some Italians, volunteer enthusiasts. The noon pause was filled in by routine fights of old or aging gladiators nearly approaching the completion of their covenanted term of service. It ended with a novelty, the encounter of two tight-rope walkers on a taut rope stretched fully thirty feet in the air. It was proclaimed that they were rivals for the favor of a pretty freedwoman and that they had agreed on this contest as a settlement of their rivalry. Certainly the two, naked save for breech-clouts and each armed with a light lance in one hand and a thin-bladed Gallic sword in the other, neared each other with every sign of caution, enmity and courage. Their sparring for an opening lasted some time, but was breathlessly interesting. The victor kept his feet on the rope and pierced his rival, who fell and died from the spear-wound or the fall or both.

During the noon pause the Emperor had left his pavilion. When he returned I, from my nearby location, was certain that Commodus himself had presided all the morning, but that now Furfur was taking his place. Certainly Palus and Murmex entered the arena soon after the noon pause and gave an exhibition almost twice as long as usual, killing many adversaries. Before the sun was half way down the sky, as Palus finished an opponent with one of his all but invisible punctures of the thigh-artery, the upper tiers first and then all ranks acclaimed this as the death of the twelve- hundredth antagonist who had perished by his unerring steel.

The daylight had not begun to dim when Murmex and Palus faced each other for the fencing bout which was to end the day. Each was equipped as a secutor, Murmex in silvered armor, Palus all in gold or gilded arms. Their swords were not regulation army swords, such a secutors normally carried, but long-bladed Gallic swords, the longest-bladed swords ever used by any gladiators.

They made a wonderful picture as the lanistae placed them and stepped back: Murmex, burly, stocky, heavy of build, thick-set, massive, with vast girth of chest and bull-neck, his neatly-fitting plated gauntlet, huge on his big right hand, his big plated boots planted solidly on the sand, his polished helmet, the great expanse of his silvered shield, his silvered kilt-strap-scales and silvered greave-boots brilliant in the cool late light; opposite him Palus, tall, lithe, graceful, slim, agile, all in gleaming gold, helmet, corselet, shield, kilt, greave-boots and all. They shone like a composite jewel set in the arena as a cameo in the bezel of a ring. And the picture they made was framed in the hoop of spectators crowding the slopes of the amphitheater, all silent after the gusts of cheers which had acclaimed the two as they took their places.

If possible, their feints and assaults were more thrilling than ever, unexpected, sudden, swift, all but successful. As always neither capered or pranced, Murmex not built for such antics, Palus by nature steady on his feet. But, except that their feet moved cannily, every bit of the rest of either's body was in constant motion and moved swiftly. The gleam and flicker of thrust and parry were inexpressibly rapid. Even the upper tiers craned, breathless and fascinated; and we, further forward, were numb and quivering with excitement.

I have heard a hundred eye-witnesses describe what occurred. There was close agreement with what I seemed to see as I watched.

Palus lunged just as Murmex made a brilliantly unpredictable shift of his position. The shift and lunge came so simultaneously that neither had, in his calculated, predetermined movement, time to alter his intention; Murmex, you might say, threw his throat at the spot at which Palus had aimed his lunge. The sword-point ripped his throat from beside the gullet to against the spine, all one side of it. He collapsed, the blood spouting.

Palus cast the dripping sword violently from him, the gleaming blade flying up into the air and falling far off on the sand. The big shield fell from his right arm. Both his hands caught his big helmet, lifted it and threw it behind him. On one knee he sank by Murmex and, with his left hand, strove to staunch the gushing blood.

Before Galen, before even the lanistae could reach the two, Murmex died.

Palus staggered to his feet and put up his gory hand to his yellow curls, with a convincingly agonized gesture of grief and horror.

He uttered some words, I heard his voice, but not the words. Folk say he said:

"I have killed the only match I had on earth, the second-best fighter earth ever saw."

The audience, I among them, stared, awe-struck and fascinated, at Commodus laying a bloody hand on his own head; we shuddered: I saw many look back and forth from Palus in the arena to the figure on the Imperial throne.

The guards ran, the surgeons' helpers ran, even Galen ran, but Aemilius Laetus reached Palus first, and, between the dazed and stunned lanistae, picked up the big golden helmet and replaced it on his head, hiding his features. The distance from the podium wall to the center of the arena is so great, the distance from any other part of the audience so much greater, that, while many of the spectators were astounded, suspicious or curious, not one could be certain that Palus was, beyond peradventure, the Prince of the Republic in person. Palus stood there, alternately staring at his dead crony and talking to Laetus and Galen.

The heralds had run up with the guards. Laetus, without any pretense of consultation with the dummy Emperor on the throne, spoke to the heralds and each stalked off to one focus of the ellipse of the arena. Thence each bellowed for silence, their deep-toned, resonant, loud, practiced voices carrying to the upper colonnade everywhere. Silence, deep already since Murmex received his death-wound and broken only by whispers, deepened. The amphitheater became almost still. Into the stillness the heralds proclaimed that next day the funeral games of Murmex Lucro would be celebrated in the Colosseum where he had died; that all persons entitled to seats in the Colosseum were thereby enjoined to attend, unless too ill to leave their homes: that all should come without togas, but, in sign of mourning for Murmex, wearing over their garments full-length, all- enveloping rain-cloaks of undyed black wool and similarly colored umbrella hats; that any person failing to attend so habited would be severely punished; that the show would be worth seeing, for, in honor of the Manes of Murmex, to placate his ghost, no defeated fighter would be spared and all the victors of the morning would fight each other in the afternoon.

Surely the tenth day before the Kalends of January, in December of the nine hundred and forty-fourth year of the City, [Footnote: 191 A.D.] the year in which Commodus was nominally consul for the seventh time, and Pertinax consul for the second time, saw the strangest audience ever assembled in the amphitheater of the Colosseum. I was there, seated, as on the day before, next my master, my gaudy Asiatic garments, like his garb of a noble of equestrian rank, hidden under a great raincoat and my face shaded by the broad brim of an umbrella hat.

The universal material conventional for mourners' attire is certainly appropriate and proper for mourning garb. For the undyed wool of black sheep, when spun and woven, results in a cloth dingy in the extreme. The wearing of garments made of it suits admirably with grief and gloom of spirit, deepens sadness, accentuates woe, almost produces melancholy. And the sight of it, when one is surrounded by persons so habited, conduces to dejection and depression. This equally was felt by the whole audience. Instead of being a space glaring in the sunlight shining on an expanse of white togas, the hollow of the amphitheater was a dingy area of brownish black under a lowering canopy of sullen cloud, for the sky was heavily overcast and threatened rain all day, though not a drop fell. The windless air was damp and penetratingly chilly, so that we almost shivered under our swathings. The discomfort of not being warm enough and the dispiriting effect of the grim sky and gloomy interior of the amphitheater was manifest in a sort of general impression of melancholy and apprehension.

Apprehension, or, certainly, uneasiness, pervaded the audience and, as it were, seemed to diffuse itself from the Imperial Pavilion, crowded, not, as usual, with jaunty figures in gaudy apparel, all crimson, blue, and green, picked out and set off by edgings of silver and gold, but with a solemn retinue, all hidden under dingy umbrella hats and swathed in rain- cloaks. To see the throne occupied by a human shape so obscured by its habiliments gave all beholders an uncanny feeling in which foreboding deepened into alarm. The appearance of the whole audience, still more of the Imperial retinue, was one to cause all beholders to interpret the garb of the spectators as ill-omened, almost as inviting disaster.

In the center of the arena was built up the pyre which was to consume all that was left of Murmex. It was constructed of thirty-foot logs, each tier laid across the one below it, the lower tiers of linden, willow, elm and other quick-burning woods, their interstices filled with fat pine-knots; the upper tiers of oak and maple, at which last I heard not a few whispered protests, for old-fashioned folk felt it almost a sacrilege that holy wood should be used to burn a gladiator, a man of blood. The pyre was thus a square structure thirty feet on a side and fully twenty feet high; each side showing silvered log-butts or log-ends, with gilded pine-knots all between; its top covered with laurel boughs, over which was laid a crimson rug with golden fringe, setting off the corpse of Murmex, which lay in the silver armor he had worn in his last fight, high on the mound of laurel boughs.

At each focus of the arena was placed a round marble altar, one to Venus Libitina, one to Pluto. By these the heralds took their stands and proclaimed that no offerings would be made at the altars except one black lamb at each, that every man slain in the day's fighting would be an offering to the Manes of Murmex, since the day would be occupied solely with the celebration of funeral games for the solace of his ghost.

The games began with a set-to of sixteen pairs of gladiators fighting simultaneously. After this was over the sixteen victors drew off towards one end of the arena and sixteen other pairs fought simultaneously. After them the victors of the first set paired off as the lanistae arranged and the eight pairs fought. The eight victors again rested while the survivors of the second set simultaneously fought as eight pairs. So they alternated till only two men survived. A third batch of thirty-two gladiators then fought in sixteen pairs: then the two survivors of the first and second batches fought. The heralds proclaimed that the sole survivor of the first sixty-four would fight again in the afternoon. So with the sole survivor of the third and fourth batches. This grim butchery gave a savage tone to the whole day. All the morning many pairs fought, till one of each pair was killed. But, after the fourth batch, every victor in any fight was reserved to fight again in the afternoon.

To my eyesight the figure on the throne, even under that broad hat-brim and enveloped in that thick rain-cloak, was manifestly Commodus in person. Unmistakably his was every Imperial gesture as he presided as Editor of the games.

During the noon interval, as usual, the Emperor retired to his robing-room under the upper tiers of the amphitheater. When again, after the noon interval, the throne was reoccupied, I felt certain that its occupant was Ducconius Furfur.

At any rate Palus appeared at once after the noon interval and the first fight was between him and the survivor of the sixty-four wretches, who had begun the day's butchery. Palus, of course, killed his man, but with more appearance of effort and less easily than any adversary he had ever faced under my observation. The people cheered his victory, but not so enthusiastically as usual. He did not appear again till the last event of the day, which was a series of duels between champions in two-horse chariots, driven by expert charioteers, they and the fighters equipped with arms and armor such as was used by both sides at the siege of Troy. Horses are seldom seen in the Colosseum and these pairs, frantic at the smell of blood, taxed to the utmost the skill and strength of their drivers, particularly as they were controlled by the old-fashioned reins of the Heroic period, the manipulation of which calls for methods different from those effective with our improved modern reins.

The charioteers were capable and their dexterous maneuvering for every advantage of approach and relative position won many cheers. Eight pairs fought, then the eight victors paired off, then the four victors, then the two. The sole survivor then retired and while he was out of the arena there entered a superb pair of bay horses, drawing a chariot of Greek pattern, in which, to the amazement of all beholders, was Narcissus, the wrestler, himself, habited as Automedon and acting as charioteer; while beside him, magnificent in a triple crested crimson-plumed helmet of the Thessalian type, in a gilded corselet of the style of the Heroic age, with gilded scales on its kilt-straps, with gilded greaves, with a big gilded Argive shield embossed with reliefs, and holding two spears, manifestly habited as Achilles, stood Palus.

When his refreshed antagonist reentered in a Trojan chariot and armored and armed as Hector of Troy, Palus handed his two spears to his Automedon, leapt from his chariot, walked over to Hector's, and spoke to him. I heard it reported afterwards that he said:

"It would spoil the program for Hector to slay Achilles, but you have as much chance of killing me as I of killing you. I am so shaken by Murmex's death that I am not the man I was yesterday morning and up till then. I never felt so nearly matched as by you, not even by Murmex. Attack and spare not. I have given orders that, if you kill me, you shall not suffer for it in any way. I don't want to live, anyhow, now Murmex is dead."

Whether he said this or something else, he spoke earnestly and walked back to his chariot nearby, without any elasticity in his tread.

Narcissus, the wrestler, to the astonishment of the spectators, proved himself a paragon horse jockey. Everyone knew him as a wrestler, as reported the strongest man alive, as claimed by his admirers to have a more powerful hand-grasp than any rival, as the favorite wrestling-mate of the Emperor; all the notabilities had seen him and Commodus wrestle in the Stadium of the Palace; all Rome knew him for a crony of the Prince; yet no one had ever heard him praised or even mentioned as a charioteer. Yet he showed himself a matchless horseman. Hector's charioteer was a master, yet Narcissus outmaneuvered him, gained the advantage of angle of approach and, after many turns, gave Palus his chance. The two great lances flew almost simultaneously; but, as Achilles dodged, Hector fell dying of a mortal wound in the throat.

What followed was, apparently, according to the prearranged program and was indubitably in keeping with the equipment of the two champions and their charioteers; yet it horrified me, and I think all the senators and nobles as well as most of the audience. As Hector sprawled horridly on the sand Narcissus veered his pair and, as they passed the fallen man, Achilles leapt from his chariot. Drawing his Argive sword he slashed the dying man across his abdomen; then, sheathing his blade, he stood, one foot on his adversary's neck and, raising his lance and shield, shouted: "Enalie! Enalie! Enalie!" the old Greek invocation to the war-god. Then he threw aside his lance and shield and stripped off the armor from the dead. Arena-slaves carried it to the pyre and placed it upon it, by Murmex.

Narcissus had wheeled the chariot in a short circle and halted it as near Palus as he could keep it and control the frantic horse. Palus took from one of the hand-holds at the back of the chariot-rail a long leathern thong. With his dirk he slit each foot of the corpse between the leg-bone and the heel-tendon; through the slit he passed the thong, knotting it to his liking. The doubled thong he tied securely to the rear rim of the chariot-bed. Retrieving his lance and shield he posed an instant, every inch Achilles, stepped over Hector's naked corpse and mounted the chariot. From Automedon he took the reins and the whip, passing him his lance, yet retaining his great circular shield, nowise hampered by which he drove the chariot round and round the pyre, the picture, as all could see, he felt, of Achilles placating the ghost of Patroclus.

This exhibition shocked the whole audience, upper tiers and all. The ghost of a hiss breathed under the tense hush of the silent beholders. A shudder ran over the hollow of the amphitheater, as the dragged corpse, mauled by the sand and turning over, became a mere lump of pounded meat. The chill of the onlookers appeared to reach Palus. He halted his team near the pyre, arena-slaves dragged away Hector's corpse, one brought a lighted torch and Palus himself kindled the pyre at each of its four corners, walking twice round it. When it was enveloped in crackling flames, he mounted the chariot and Narcissus drove him out; drove him out, to the horror of all beholders by the Gate of Ill-omen.

After he vanished through that gate no amphitheater ever again beheld Palus the Gladiator.

When he was gone all eyes were fixed on the kindling pyre. The flames blazed up all round it and above it, the smoke mounted skyward in a thick column, the crackle and roar of the flames was audible all over the amphitheater; so deep was the solemn stillness. I shall carry to my last living hour the vivid recollection of that picture: under the grim gray sky, framed in by the sable hangings which draped the upper colonnade, and by the clingy audience, against the yellow sand, that column of sooty smoke and below it the red glare of the blazing pyre.



CHAPTER XXXVI

ANXIETY

After my seclusion at Baiae, up to the terrible events which I am about to narrate, by far the most important of my experiences had been my personal observations of the fights of Palus the Gladiator and what I had heard and thought about him. Therefore I have narrated those at length and first. Now I approach the story of my most dreadful miseries.

From my return to Rome my life had gone on much as it had before my master had compelled me to impersonate Salsonius Salinator and, in so doing, to resume my natural appearance as I had looked while my genuine self, and thus, undisguised, to mingle with the associates of my normal early life. After my hair and beard had regained their previous luxuriance and I was again painted, rouged, frizzed, bejeweled, and bedizened, I felt safe and, was in fact, almost entirely safe. In this guise I enjoyed life. Falco was indulgent to me and I had every luxury at my command.

Falco's mania for gem-collecting did not wane, but, if possible, grew on him. His ventures all prospered, his profits from risky speculations poured in, his normal income from his heritage increased; and, of all this opulence, every surplus denarius was paid out for gems and curios. Yet he never was so much a faddist as to lose a day from the games of the circus and the amphitheater. He viewed every show of gladiators, every day of racing, almost every combat and every race.

The day after the spectacular games for Murmex and his more spectacular cremation, the eighth day before the Kalends of January, was nominally the last racing day of the year. The weather was fair and mild. The Circus Maximus was crowded, the Imperial Pavilion blazed with the retinue about the Emperor, he and all of us enjoyed the thirty races of four four-horsed chariots to each. I mention this because it was his last public appearance.

The festivities of the Saturnalia, which I had prepared for according to Falco's orders with lavish prodigality, left me more than a little weary. I spent some days mostly in resting and dozing, being drowsy all day, even with long nights of sound sleep.

On the fatal last day of the year I did not go out, but read or dozed and went early to bed. I slept heavily, knowing nothing from composing myself in bed until I wakened suddenly in the almost complete darkness of the first hint of light at the dawn of a cloudy, windless winter day, I woke with a sense of having been roused, of something unusual; and, vaguely descrying a human figure by my bed asked, sleepily:

"Is that you, Dromo?"

"No," said Agathemer's voice, "it is I."

I raised myself on one elbow, shot through with foreboding. But my apprehensions were mastered by an idle curiosity. I knew he had some imperative reason for coming to me, yet I did not ask his errand, but queried:

"How on earth did you get in?"

"The house-door was open," he said simply.

"But," I marvelled, "I am surprised that the janitor was awake so early."

"He was not," said Agathemer with deliberate emphasis, "he was as fast asleep in his cell on the right of the vestibule as was the watch-dog in his on the left."

"And you walked past both unnoticed?" I hazarded.

"I did," said he, "and you had best warn Falco somehow or induce him to sell his janitor and buy one he can trust or to put in his place some trusty home-slave. That is no sort of a janitor for the house containing the second-largest private gem-collection in all Rome. Nor any sort of watch-dog."

"How came the door unbarred?" I wondered, "who showed you up here?"

"I came up alone," said Agathemer, significantly. "I have not seen a human being except the snoring janitor. This house is at the mercy of any sneak- thief. But you can return to that later. I have come to tell you good news. Commodus is dead!"

"Really?" I quavered.

Oddly enough I felt no sense of relief. Before my eyes arose the picture of Commodus as I had seen him facing the mutineers from Britain before he condemned Perennis: I recalled how often I had heard said of him that he was the noblest born of all our Emperors from the Divine Julius down; that he was the handsomest and the strongest man in any assembly about him, however large; that in his Imperial Regalia he looked more imperial than any man ever had: I contrasted his possession of these qualities with his pitiful squandering of his boundless opportunities, with his frittering away his life on horse-racing, sword-play and such like frivolities. I could not think of myself, only of what Commodus might have been and had not been. I mourned for him and Rome.

Agathemer sat down on the edge of my bed and told his story.

"You know," he said, "that, as gem-expert and as salesman for Orontides, I have many friends in the Palace. I have carefully kept out of it myself and Orontides has acquiesced, for I told him I had good reason to avoid going in there, as you well know I have. If Marcia had seen me she would have recognized me and I should not have lived many hours, for she, believing you dead, would regard me as, of all men, the most likely to see through the utilization of Ducconius Furfur as a dummy Emperor to free Commodus for masquerading as Palus. She would want me out of the way as the only man in Rome who had known Furfur in Sabinum. Therefore I kept away from the Palace.

"But my good friends among the valets and chamberlains and secretaries, and even higher officials have not only kept me posted as to the most interesting happenings, intrigues and rumors, but one or two close to the Emperor have regularly communicated to me many details of Palace gossip."

Daily, since the death of Murmex, Agathemer had been informed of long, heated and ever longer and more violent discussions between Commodus and Marcia, often, with Eclectus also present and participating, for he had been acting towards Commodus more as an equal toward a crony than as Head Chamberlain of the Palace towards his master. Laetus, too had also participated, sometimes in place of Eclectus, sometimes along with him, for he also had been comporting himself more as a chum of Commodus than as Prefect of the Praetorium towards his Emperor.

The substance of the discussions had been always the same. Commodus, at once after the death of Murmex, announced his intention of turning his Imperial duties and dignities over to Ducconius Furfur and of going to the Choragium, there and thenceforward to live and to die as Palus the Gladiator. He declared that as Emperor he never had an hour free from anxiety, always in dread of assassination by poison or otherwise, whereas, as a gladiator among gladiators, he felt perfectly safe and carefree, beloved and watched over by all his companions and certain to win all his fights.

"As Emperor," he said, "I'll not live a year; as Palus I'll most likely die of old age, forty years or more from now. Furfur and I are so alike that no one can tell us apart, so no one will ever suspect that the man acting as Emperor is not the same man who has filled that place ever since Father died."

Marcia had talked to him of his duty and he had rejoined that he had always known that he was unfit to be the Emperor, had feared his responsibilities, had undertaken them unwillingly, had mostly bungled them, and the world would be far better off with anybody else as Emperor, that everybody knew it and that he was despised by the whole Senate and nobility and for that reason more unhappy although he was unhappy enough so anyhow, without the covert jeers of the magistrates; whereas he was the best gladiator ever and all gladiators and experts acknowledged and acclaimed him peerless; as a gladiator he would be happy and enjoy life up to whatever end came to him, preferably an unexpected accidental sudden death such as had befallen Murmex. Ducconius Furfur had not only sat in his throne at shows, but had received embassies, read better than he the addresses composed for him by his Prefects of the Praetorium and Secretaries, knew all the tricks of the office and could and would be a better Emperor than ever he had been.

When Eclectus and Laetus argued with him the results were similar.

Then Marcia admonished him that while Furfur had escaped detection in mere routine matters he was certain to be detected within a few days if he essayed all the Imperial duties before all sorts of people. In that case some sort of revolt would abolish him and put a new Emperor in place of him and any such chosen autocrat would quickly order the death of Palus the Gladiator to assure himself the throne. To this line of argument Commodus had been as deaf as to all other lines.

"Why," he had said, "if I change clothes with Furfur you wouldn't know the difference yourself. If we both were garbed as Emperor, Laetus wouldn't know which to obey. And if my wife and most loyal servant cannot tell which is which when we are side by side and habited alike, who will ever suspect that Furfur is not I when I am out of the way, far off, living as Palus the Swordsman, never alongside the Emperor or in sight at the same time? The plan cannot miscarry."

He had announced that he meant on the Kalends of January to take up his abode in the Choragium and leave the Palace and its adjuncts and all his prerogatives to Ducconius Furfur. He had Furfur in and the five had a heated wrangle. Furfur, after the discussion, had another with Marcia, Eclectus and Laetus, declaring that he thought the scheme as insane as they thought it, but dared not show reluctance for fear of being put to death at once: as an impostor Emperor he would, at least, have a chance, if a faint chance, of success and survival.

Then they all had a long altercation on the last day of the year, during which Commodus cursed Marcia and Eclectus and Laetus and vowed he would have them all executed if they mentioned the subject again. He imperiously bade them acquiesce and so silenced them.

Then he made Furfur, who pretended to him that he was delighted, remain to drink with him. They drank till both were dead drunk and snoring.

Marcia, finding them so, held a consultation with Eclectus and Laetus and proposed to have Narcissus strangle Furfur, saying that with Furfur out of the way Commodus might come to his senses: she would risk his wrath and be resigned to death if she failed to placate him; for, with Furfur dead, he could not carry out his crazy intentions. She said she loved Commodus so much that she was willing to save him even at the cost of her own life.

Eclectus and Laetus acclaimed her plan and were overjoyed at their opportunity, for all three hated Furfur. Yet, all three shrank from going into the room with Narcissus. He, entering alone, mistook the two sleepers, who had changed clothes, and by mistake for Furfur, strangled Commodus. After his victim was indubitably dead and past any possibility of reviving he summoned his accomplices and, when Marcia shrieked and fainted, for the first time realized his blunder.

Then, frantic, he seized Furfur and strangled him to death long before Eclectus had revived Marcia from her swoon.

As Agathemer told it to me all this came out in a haphazard tangle of unfinished sentences, interruptions, fresh starts, questions, answers, repetitions and explanations.

Meanwhile the day had dawned gray and lowering. Of all my strange experiences none were more eery than that talk with Agathemer, beginning in the dark and, with his form and features and expressions effaced, gradually becoming more and more visible. And towards the end of his disclosures he checked himself in the middle of a word and, raising his hand, whispered:

"Hark!"

Silent and tense, we listened. Even in my bedroom, opening on the side gallery of the peristyle, we heard, from over the roofs, cries of:

"The tyrant is dead! The despot is dead! The prize-fighter is dead! The murderer is dead!"

"The news is out!" Agathemer ejaculated, and he breathed a prayer to Mercury, in which I joined. When finally he had told all he had to tell I marvelled:

"Can it be possible that the most intimate and secret conversations of the Prince of the Republic, of the most sedulously guarded man on earth, are thus overheard by underlings and so promptly communicated even to outsiders presumably to be reckoned among his enemies?"

"I conjecture," Agathemer rejoined, "that I am not the only outsider in receipt of information of this kind."

"If you have been, all along," I asked, "in receipt of such information, why have you always talked of Furfur's presence in the Palace and his utilization as a dummy Emperor while Commodus masqueraded as Palus, as a conjecture of yours which you believed, but of which you could not be certain? Why have you not frankly spoken of it as a fact, which many knew of and of which some in a position to know, repeatedly informed you?"

"Because no one ever did so inform me," Agathemer answered, "they merely dropped hints, mostly hints, unnoticed by themselves, unintentionally dropped by them, and uncertainly pieced together by me. While Commodus was alive each of my informants, however fond of me, however under obligations to me, however anticipative of profit from me, however eager to curry favor with me, yet had vividly before him the dread of death, of death with torture, if any disloyalty of his, any dereliction in deed, word or thought, came to the notice of Commodus or Laetus or Eclectus, or if any one of them came to harbor any suspicion of him. All were vague, guarded, indefinite, cautious.

"Since midnight all that has changed. None fears any retribution for blabbing; all feel an overmastering urge towards confiding in some one. The three who, each unknown to the others, have resorted to me, told me unreckonably more than I previously conjectured. I comprehend the entire situation, now."

"If so," I said, "make me comprehend it. I do not. How could Furfur be coerced or persuaded to such an imposture? How could he be domiciled in the Palace along with Marcia and Commodus and the deception maintained? How could the three personally endure or even sustain the difficulties of the situation?"

"It all hinged," Agathemer explained, "on the fact that Furfur was insanely in love with Marcia, that Marcia hated and loathed him and that Commodus realized how each felt to the other. He was so sure of Marcia's detestation of Furfur that he was never jealous of him, so sure of Furfur's complete subserviency to Marcia that he never feared betrayal by him. Actually, from what I hear, Furfur complied as he did partly from loyalty to Commodus, partly from fear of him, partly, perhaps, from a sort of relish for his risky impersonation, but chiefly because he was wax in Marcia's hands; as, indeed, was every man who came within reach of her fascinations. Does that explain it?"

"Enough," I agreed. "Perhaps as far as it can or could be explained."

"The main thing," said Agathemer, "is that Commodus is dead."

"I should be pleased to hear that," I said, "and I am and I thank you. But, somehow, I am unable to think of myself. Uppermost in my mind is the thought of the dead autocrat, of his unlimited power, of his inability to surround himself with trustworthy dependents, and of all you have had hinted to you and, even to-night, told you. In such a world, who can consider himself safe?"

Agathemer looked piqued.

"I reckoned," he said, "that you would feel, if not safe, at least less unsafe upon hearing my announcement."

"I do," said I, "for, under any other Prince, I should be less in danger, and, when we learn who is chosen Emperor, it may turn out that I have some chance of rehabilitation."

"Laetus and Eclectus," said Agathemer, "have decided to make Pertinax Emperor. When my informer left the Palace they had already set off to find Pertinax, presumably at his home, and offer him the Principate."

"That," I gloried, "is truly good news. I knew him as a young noble knows many an older senator: he may remember me. He should have nothing against me. You raise my hopes high!"

"By all means be hopeful and cheerful," said Agathemer, "but stick to your present disguise and continue your present way of life until we are sure. Do not be rash."

We consulted further and he said:

"I'll keep away from you except when it seems imperative to talk with you. I shall not send any more letters than I must. Do not write to me. If you must see me, it will be safe to come to Orontides' shop, as Falco is continually sending you there about gems. You can nod to me without any uttered word and I'll then come here as soon as may be."

He left just as dawn brightened into full day.

Among the first proclamations of our new Emperor was one expressly abolishing the court for prosecuting accusations for infringement of the Imperial Majesty by incautious words or inadvertent acts and at the same time decreeing the recall of every living exile banished for such transgressions; also specifically rehabilitating the memory of all persons who had been under Commodus, put to death on the pretext of this sort of guilt. Before the end of the day on which this decree was promulgated I received a letter from Agathemer in which he wrote:

"Beware! Keep close. Already it is rumored that exceptions to this decree have been made. Marcia is still alive, is married to Eclectus, and Eclectus is confirmed as Palace Chamberlain. With Marcia close to the Emperor you are not safe, no matter who is Emperor. Keep close!"

I followed his advice, which was easy for me to do, as I was very comfortable and well habituated to my life. Moreover I was buoyed up with hope of early rehabilitation and of then marrying Vedia, who sent me one cautiously worded note, congratulating me on the disappearance of my most dangerous foeman, warning me that I still had formidable enemies alive and in high places, and begging me to be prudent. She reiterated her expressions of love, devotion and fidelity.

From Tanno also I received a letter warning me to be on guard and to efface myself as much as possible.

Falco, who had loathed Commodus, but had been careful to keep a still tongue on all matters except horse-racing, sword-play, social pleasures and gem-collecting, was much relieved at his death, and heartily delighted with his successor. He took pains to be present among the auditors of Pertinax whenever nobles were admitted along with the senators to listen to his addresses, which was almost always. He took to heart the new Emperor's adjurations as to economy and his invectives against the evils of speculative enterprises of all kinds. Over our wine after dinner, when we two dined alone together, much as Agathemer and I had when I was my former self, he unbosomed himself to me.

"Pertinax is right," he averred, "there is a real difference between enterprises which enrich only the participants and those which, while profiting their promoters, also add to the wealth of the Republic. I applaud his distinction between the two. I agree with him that wealthy men like me should invest their capital in nothing which does not benefit mankind as well as themselves. I have realized with a shock of shame that my greed for cash to spend on jewels has led me to embark in ventures which merely divert into my coffers the proceeds of other men's efforts, without adding anything to the sum-total of usable wealth. I mean to withdraw from all such monetary acrobatics and utilize my surplus in extending my estates, in buying others, in cattle-breeding, sheep-raising, goat-herding, and in the cultivation of olives, vines, and other such remunerative growths, along with wheat-farming. Thus I will add to the resources of the Republic, while increasing my own cash income.

"Our conscientious Prince is equally correct in exhorting us to eschew all frivolities. I'll buy no more gems. Nay, I'll auction my collection, as soon as Rome recovers its calm and purchasers are as eager as last year. I'll invest the proceeds in productive enterprise. Thus, as Pertinax says, I shall be a more useful citizen and an even happier man."

Actually he at once initiated his arrangements for closing out the speculative ventures which he controlled and for withdrawing from those in which he participated. And he bought no more gems, though he talked gems as much as previously, or even more, and took great pride in showing visitors over his collection or in conning his treasures in company with me or even entirely alone by himself.

His enthusiasm for Pertinax grew warmer day by day and he talked of him, praising him, lauded him, prophesied for him great things and from him great benefits to the Republic and the Empire.

The alleged conspiracy against Pertinax of Consul Sosius Falco and his disgrace and relegation to his estates was a great shock to my master. That his cousin should plot against the Prince of our Republic, or lay himself open to accusation of such plotting, appeared to him hideous and shameful. He felt disgraced himself, as bearing the same family name. He gloomed and mourned over the matter.

The murder of Pertinax, by his own guards, on the fifth day before the Kalends of April, when he had been less than three months Emperor, was even a more violent shock to Falco, who was crushed with horror at such a crime. He was even more horrified at the arrogance of the guilty Praetorians and at their shameless effrontery in offering the Imperial Purple to the highest bidder and in, practically, selling the Principiate to so bestial a Midas as Didius Julianus, who, of all the senators, seemed most to misbecome the Imperial Dignity and who had nothing to recommend him except his opulence.

During the days of rioting which followed the murder of Pertinax we, naturally, kept indoors. When the disorders abated and the streets of Rome resumed their normal activities, Falco continued to remain at home. I expostulated with him, but he appeared, suddenly, a changed man, as if dazed and stunned by recent events. He, who had been continually on the go, living in a round of social pleasures, became averse to much of what he had before revelled in. My most ingenious pleadings were required to induce him to go to the Public Baths, which fashionable clubhouses he had frequented every afternoon from his first arrival at Rome. Until the death of Pertinax he had only very occasionally dined alone with me: nearly every day he went out to a formal dinner or entertained a large batch of guests at a lavish banquet. After Pertinax's murder he began to refuse invitations to dine and he gave fewer dinners. He spent a great deal of his time with his lawyers and accountants and went over the affairs of his African estates, minutely, one by one and all of them. He made a new will and told me of it.

"Phorbas," he said, "I am troubled with forebodings. I have never thought of death until recently, except as of something far off and to be considered much later: since the murder of our good Emperor I think of it continually. If I live long enough to see normal conditions restored I shall follow the suggestions given to me by the addresses of Pertinax and shall auction my gems. Meanwhile I dread that I may not live to do so. Therefore I have made a will leaving my entire collection to you. I hereby enjoin you, should you come into possession of them, to sell the gems at auction, as soon as you see fit, and to invest the proceeds in enterprises which shall add to the wealth of the Republic. This bequest is a trust. Besides I have, as in former wills, bequeathed to you your freedom, and a legacy sufficient to make you comfortable for life. Moreover I have made you the heir of one-fourth of my estate, what remains of it after the gem collections is yours and all specific legacies are paid. I do not love my nephews and cousins and have bequeathed to them more than they deserve; as to the toadies who have hung about me and fawned on me in the hope of legacies, I despise them all. You are my best friend and chief heir."

I thanked him effusively and was so much affected that I myself began to have uncomfortable, vague forebodings. Agathemer happened to visit me and I confided to him the contents of my old leather amulet-bag. Of course I had not worn it since I began life with Falco, as a greasy old amulet-bag of the meanest material and pattern was wholly out of keeping with the character I had assumed. I wore instead a flat locket of pure gold, containing a talisman from the Pontic fastnesses. I had kept my share of our mountain trove of stolen jewels, not needing to part with any after Falco bought me and unconcerned for the gems, as I now needed no such store of savings. Now, suddenly, I felt uneasy about myself, my future and my possessions. These jewels I therefore placed in Agathemer's keeping, sure that they would be safer with him than with me and certain that he could realize on them quickly and transmit to me promptly whatever sums I might need.

I did all I could to rouse Falco from his lethargy and succeeded to some extent. But, all through April and May, he went out little, accepted few invitations and gave few dinners. Much of his time he spent among his jewels, conning them, handling them, taking curios from their cases and, as it were, caressing them. The rooms which held them were on the left hand side of the peristyle on the upper floor, across the court from my apartment and not precisely opposite it. There were three rooms; the larger with a door on the gallery, and a smaller on either side of it, opening from it and lit by windows towards the gallery. Each room had a marble table in the middle, small and round in both side cabinets, rectangular and large in the main room. Each of the three rooms was walled with cases and shelves; on the shelves were displayed his larger curios, vases, cameos, intaglios, plaques, murrhine bowls and such like; in the cases were necklaces, bracelets, rings, seals and trays of unset gems of all sorts and sizes. Here Falco spent hours each day, gloating over his treasures.

"Phorbas," he said, "I am resolute never to buy another gem, equally resolute to auction all I have whenever conditions make a profitable sale probable. Yet, although I feel that I shall never live to see them auctioned, the very thought of parting with them cuts me to the quick. I am almost in tears to think of it. I love every piece I own. I hate to think I must either live to see them sold or die and leave them. I cannot be with them enough of my time. I could spend all my waking hours enjoying their loveliness and my luck in owning them."

I thought this condition of mind positively unhealthy and consulted Galen.

"You are right," he said, "and you are wrong too. Your master is badly shaken by the horrors of this appalling year, but he is not deranged nor, at this present time, in any more danger of derangement than most of the senators and nobles with whom he associates. Yet you are correct in being uneasy. Don't antagonize him, but do all you can, tactfully and unobtrusively, to keep him away from those jewels and to get him out to the Baths of Titus or to dinners. Do your utmost to induce him to entertain. A jolly dinner with a bevy of jovial guests will be the very medicine for him."

Had I been a Greek I could not have been, more wily or more successful. He spent less time with his gems, went out to the Baths oftener, accepted some dinner invitations and gave a few dinners. He even took some interest in preparing for these and in giving orders about them. He had five complete sets of silverware for his triclinium and had a fancy for using this or that set, according to the characters of his prospective guests.

Early in May he had invited a carefully selected company of concordant guests, three senators and the rest nobles like himself, and was anticipating a delightful evening. He had bidden me to see to the selection of the flowers for decorating the triclinium, for the garlands, and for sprinkling on the floor; to choose the wines I thought would be most appropriate and to have brought out and used his most prized set of silver, the work of Corinnos of Rhodes, embossed with scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses and acclaimed one of the finest services in Rome. Besides the two tall mixing-bowls for tempering the wine before serving it, the set had four smaller ones, about the size of well-buckets, and much like them, for each was provided with two hinged handles, just like a water-pail. I saw to the polishing of every piece in this magnificent service, to their proper disposal, to the decoration of the triclinium with flowers, verified the wines I had chosen, inspected every detail of the preparations for the feast, and, just before the first guest might be expected to arrive, went out and back into the kitchen to make sure that every dish of each course was being properly prepared and that nothing would be lacking.

When I returned to the triclinium I found it swept clean of silver, except the two big wine mixers. The four two-handled pails were gone and with them the salt-cellars, the wine strainers, every soup-spoon, every oyster-spoon, in fact every small piece, to the last. The thieves must have been deft, agile and keen, for nothing was overset or disturbed and I had heard no noise.

I rushed to the house-door, found it ajar and, each sleeping in his cell, on the one side the snoring janitor, on the other our fat, pursy, overfed watchdog.

I omit my hasty measures for pursuing the thieves and attempting their capture or at least the recovery of their booty; and my urgent and important efforts to arrange that our guests should be properly received and the dinner should not be spoiled. Towards this last I did what could be done and with fair success, Falco playing up to my suggestions and dissimulating his chagrin.

More important to record was his amazing indifference to his loss. Not that he did not feel it acutely, but that he seemed to feel no proper indignation against those at fault.

He questioned the janitor and all the slaves concerned, but instead of ordering scourged the two servitors whom I had left in the triclinium when I went out of it to visit the kitchen and who should have remained there until my return, he merely reprimanded them mildly. He did not so much as have the undutiful janitor flogged, let alone sent away for sale. He even laughed at the luck, alertness, dexterity and swiftness of the thieves; picturing their glance into the unshut door, their glances up and down the street, their eyeings of the watchdog and janitor, their noiseless dash into the atrium, their invasion of the triclinium, their gathering of the smaller pieces into the four handled wine-mixers, and their escape, each with two silver pails stuffed with goblets, salt- cellars, and bowls and, brimming with strainers, spoons and other small pieces.

He commented on their luck in not encountering any of his approaching guests.

"Mercury," he said, "to whom you chiefly pray, must have been good to them, as his votaries."

I was horrified at the levity of his attitude of mind. When we were alone I remonstrated with him, saying that such leniency was certain to demoralize his household; would ruin any set of slaves. I told him that his retention of the janitor after Agathemer's unnoticed entrance on the first day of the year was bad enough, far worse was it to condone a second lapse, and that having had consequences so serious. I expostulated that it was madness to entrust his housedoor to a watchman already twice caught asleep at his post. I reminded him of the cash value of his gem-collection and of its value in his eyes, not to be reckoned in cash. He listened indulgently and said:

"I thank you, Phorbas. All you say is true. And, any time last year, I should have sold that janitor without a thought, after your information against him last January. But, somehow, since the murder of Commodus, yet more since the murder of Pertinax, I seem less prone to severity and more inclined to mercy. The waiter-boys deserve flogging, but I cannot harden my heart and order it. The janitor merits being sold without a character, after a severe scourging; yet I feel for him, too. I'll give him another chance."

I could not move him.

I again consulted Galen:

"You are right!" he exclaimed. "A Roman nobleman who hesitates to have his slaves flogged or sold and merely reprimands them, is certainly deranged. Any natural Roman would insist on scourgings and even severer punishments, But his eccentricity is not dangerous to him or anybody as yet. Humor him, do not oppose his worship of his treasures, but entice him away from them all you can by devices he does not suspect.

"And let me add, keep away from me, for your own sake. Keep away from Vedia and Tanno and Agathemer. Do not write letters. True, Julianus has put Marcia to death and you are rid of a pertinacious and alert enemy. But he has recalled into favor most of the professional informers who flourished under Commodus and they are on the watch for victims to win them praise and rewards. Several of the exiles recalled by Pertinax have been rearrested and re-banished or even executed since Julianus came into power. Keep close and beware!"



CHAPTER XXXVII

ACCUSATION

The murder or assassination or execution of Julianus on the Kalends of June shocked Falco even more than the deaths of Commodus and Pertinax. As the June days passed I had to exercise my greatest adroitness to keep him from spending all his waking hours indoors, chiefly in moping about his collection of gems. I did pretty well with him, for I wheedled him into going to the Baths of Titus three afternoons out of four, into going out to dine one evening in three, and I even induced him to give several formal dinners, each of which was a great success.

But, if I left him to himself, I invariably found him glooming over the gems which no longer gave him any real pleasure. And I could not blame him. Indoors one felt reasonably safe in Rome that June, for no residences had been broken into anywhere in the city, though many shops had been looted and some burnt. But, in the streets, the insolence of the Praetorians was unendurable and their unbridled license and arrogance terrorized the entire population, especially the upper classes. Going anywhere in broad daylight was dangerous, even going to the Baths of Titus from the Esquiline was risky. Anyone like Falco was certain to feel safer indoors. And the tense uncertainty of those twenty-four days made everybody restless, feverish, fidgety and morose: civil war between Severus and Pescennius Niger, lord of the East, was inevitable. How Clodius Albinus, in control of Gaul, Spain and Britain, would act, was problematical. We were all keyed-up, apprehensive and wretched.

Our suspense was shorter since it turned out that Severus had made up his mind and begun to make his rapid and effective arrangements as soon as he heard of the murder of Pertinax. Pertinax was murdered on the fifth day before the Kalends of April and so swiftly travelled the imperial couriers who were his friends and who arranged to set out at once and carry Severus the news, that the first of them rode more than eight hundred miles in eight days and reached him at Caruntum in Pannonia on the Nones of April. Severus was cautious, kept secret what he had heard and moved seventy-two miles nearer Rome to Sabaria in Pannonia, where, after the news was confirmed beyond question, he harangued the soldiers and was by them saluted Emperor on the Ides of April. At once he assured himself of the support or acquiescence of his officers and won over the local authorities and garrisons all over Illyricum, Noricum and Rhaetia. Bands of his most trusted soldiers set off towards Rome by every road. He gathered his forces, made sure of their loyalty and began his march. He was already at Aquileia when the news of the death of Julianus reached him there on the Nones of June. He marched straight to Rome and on the tenth day before the Kalends of July, the day of the summer solstice, was outside the city, accompanied by the delegation of senators who had met him at Interamnia and surrounded by the six hundred picked men who acted as his personal guards, who, it was rumored, had not taken off their corselets day nor night since they left Sabaria.

The next day, the ninth day before the Kalends of July, we heard with amazement that the Praetorians had been cowed, had surrendered their standards to Severus and had been disarmed. Certainly knots of them hung about the streets and squares, all in ordinary tunics and rain hats, shorn of their uniforms as well as of their weapons, and looking not only humbled but frightened. It was rumored that all of those directly concerned with the murder of Pertinax had been not only disarmed and stripped of their uniforms, but actually stripped naked and scourged out of the camp by the Illyrian legionaries who had surrounded and cowed them, and ordered to flee the neighborhood of Rome and never again to approach within a hundred miles of the capitol.

From noon of that day the whole city was in a ferment, preparing for the entry on the morrow of our new Emperor. This was acclaimed the most magnificent spectacle ever beheld in Rome; certainly I was never spectator of anything so impressive. The day was fair, almost cloudless, mild and warm, but pleasant with a gentle breeze. From where Falco and I viewed the procession, nearer the Forum, we gazed about on a wondrous picture: the blue sky above, under it a frame of roofs, mostly of red tiles, some of green weathered bronze among them giving variety, and here and there a temple roof of silver gleaming in the sun, not a few gilded and flashing.

As far as we could see about us every balcony was hung with tapestries gay with particolored patterns, every doorway and window was wreathed in flowers, countless braziers sent up columns of scented smoke. The streets were lined with throngs habited in togas newly whitened; spectators of both sexes, the men in white togas, their women in the brightest silks, crowded every window, loggia, balcony, roof, and other viewpoint. The chattering of the crowds ceased when the head of the procession appeared, and, in a breathless hush, we saw leading it on horseback, with two mounted aides, Flavius Juvenalis, who had been third and last Prefect of the Praetorium to Julianus and who, as an honorable gentleman and loyal official, had been confirmed and continued in this post by Severus. Behind him tramped, in serried ranks, an entire legion of the Pannonian troops, in full armor with their great shields gleaming and the sun sparkling on their gilded helmets and their spear-points.

Behind them came ten of the elephants with which Julianus, in his futile, bungling attempts at preparations for resistance, had had some of his men drill. Each now carried in his tower eight Danubians, four tall Dacian spearmen and four Scythian archers, bow in hand, leaning over the edge of the howdah.

Behind the elephants came Norican legionaries carrying the surrendered standards of the disbanded Praetorian Guard; not held aloft, but trailed, half inverted.

Then, amid roars of cheers, came Severus himself, habited not in his general's regalia, but in the gorgeous Imperial robes, as if already in the Palace and about to give a public levee. Though thus clad as in time of peace and walking all the way on foot, he was hedged about by his faithful six hundred, every man stepping alertly, helmet-plumes waving, helmets glittering, shields gleaming, spear-points asparkle, kilt-straps flapping, scabbards clanking, a grim advertisement of irresistible power.

After this guard walked our entire Senate, and, as the Emperor and Senate acknowledged the acclamations of the onlookers, passing amid thunders of cheering, behind we saw a long serpent ribbon of Illyrian legionaries, every man fully armed and armored as for instant battle, their even tramp sounding grim and monotonous when the cheerers paused for breath, their resistless might manifest. Indubitably Rome belonged to Severus, he was our master.

Falco, hopeful, yet awed, said little. Once inside his housewalls he fled to his beloved gems and solaced himself with them till it was time for his bath, which he took in his private bathrooms. He and I dined alone and talked chiefly of our hopes of the new Emperor. Falco particularly remarked his appearance of hard commonsense, ruthless decision and flinty resolve.

Next day, soon after dawn, we heard many rumors of disorders by the Illyrian troops, of their having used temples for barracks that night, of cook-shops forced to feed them without payment, of shops plundered and pedestrians robbed. Naturally the entire household kept indoors, except such slaves as went out for fresh vegetables, fruits and fish. I solaced myself by reading the Tragedies of Ennius. I read parts of his Hector, Achilles, Neoptolemus, Ajax and Andromache, with much emotion, and especially the Bellerophon, forgetting everything else. Then I slept until late in the afternoon.

Waking I bathed unhurriedly and then went to call Falco, who liked to bathe at the last possible moment before dinner. I walked round the rear gallery of the peristyle, sure of finding him among his jewels. The door of the middle room was not shut, and barely ajar. Against the sill of the door, on the brown and white mosaic pavement of the gallery, a glint of color caught my eye. I stooped and picked up a fine uncut emerald, one of Falco's chief treasures.

A qualm of apprehension shot through me. I pushed the door, entered and swept the room with a glance. A confusion of jewel-trays cluttered the floor, no sign of Falco. Nor was he in the left-hand room, which had been similarly rifled.

But, when I turned and peered through the right-hand inner door I saw, across the marble center-table, horridly sprawled, what I instantly knew for his corpse, so unmistakably did the head hang loose, the arms dangle, the legs trail: he was manifestly a corpse, even without sight of the dagger-hilt projecting from his back.

I rushed to him and touched him.

He was yet warm, the blood still trickled from about the dagger, driven deep under the left shoulder blade, slanting upwards, the very stroke Agathemer had drilled me in early in our flight, the stroke with which I had slaughtered two of the five bullies at Nona's hut!