"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!"