The Emperor, Complete

r with Alexandria-some of whom he named-and at the same time to send the architect a good couch with pillows and coverlets, and to despatch a good meal and fi

e from a distance the prefect could see a bright light; it rose to heaven from the large pans of pitch which were placed on the towers on each side of the tall gate of the Caesareum which face

this Pontius does is thoroughly done, and there is no more

ch led to the imperial residence that had been built by the Alexandrians for Tiberius, and had been greatly extended and beautified under the later Caesars. A sacred grove divided it from the temple of Caesar, with which it communicated by a covered colonnade. Before this door there were several chariots and horses,

he care and trouble which with the assistance of Pontius, he had for months devoted to rendering this palace which had not been used since Titus had set out for Judaea, fit quarters for Hadrian's reception. The Empress now lived in the rooms intended for her husband, and decorated with the choicest works of art, and Titi

rmth and subtle perfume met his senses; the warmth was produced by stoves of a peculiar form standing in the middle of the room; one of these represented Vulcan's forge. Brightly glowing charcoal lay in front of the bellows which were worked by an automaton, at short regular intervals, while the god and his assistants modelled in brass, stood round the genial fire with tongs and hammers. The other stove was a large

when he had to glance round the room to find the persons in it, collected, as they were, into small knots. He could hear nothing but hushed voices; here an unintelligible murmur and there a suppressed laugh, but from no one a frank speech or full utterance. For a moment he felt as if he had found admittance to the abode of w

ed in long cylindrical curls pinned closely side by side. The Empress's thin face looked particularly small under the mass of natural and artificial adornment which towered above her brow. Beautiful she could never have been, even in her youth, but her features were regular, and the prefect confessed to himself as he looked at Sabina's face, marked as it was with minute wrinkles and touched up with red and white, that the sculptor who

ht suffer some injury, and wrapped it and her arm in her upper-robe. But she returned the prefect's friendly greeting with all the warmth at her command. Though formerly at Rome she had been accustomed to see Titianus every day at her house, this was their first meeting in

at of a dull, fractious, childless woman. "At noon the sun burns you up, and in the evening it is so cold-so intolerably c

g the bowstrings of the Egyptian wi

w your wife a couple of hours since. Africa seems to suit her less well; I was

the foe o

but true beauty often

the living proof o

as to say that

know the secret of

d the Empress with a twit

ate do not fav

than they are, or who gives them finer names than they des

find words to repel even

s, the sophist; I dare say he is proving to Ptolemaeus that the stars are mere specks of blood in our eyes, which we choose to believe are in the sky. Florus, the historian, is taking note of this weighty disc

llon

e difficult it is to understand the discourses of

ter-all that floats on the surface is borne by the waves,

his books. It was his wish that I should invite these peop

company of Favorinus and Ptolemae

what

tertai

d Sabina, and her thin lips curled w

f Antinous, which is celebrated, but which

ry anxious to s

not de

h Caesar?" said Sabina, and a keen glance of i

to delay my hus

companion of my youth, the greatest and wisest of men, after a separation of four years? What would I not

son can y

hich the Emperor tells me that he proposes to inhabi

er gaze, dark and blank, was fixed on her l

se I a

ad not heard these words, an

though I have already begun to exert all the forces at my command, with the assistance of our admirable architect, Pontius, to restore a por

y the right-hand wall of the hall, and which were at some distance from her couch, calling out "Verus." But her voice was so weak that it did not reach the

f men and women who were hanging on his words. What he was saying in a subdued voice must have been extraordinarily diverting, for it could be seen that his hearers were making the greatest efforts to keep their suppressed laughter from breaking

r the future whenever you speak I shall stop my e

escended from King Antioc

ed the prefect, nodding

nts to spe

t tedious philologer who has now button-holed my witty friend Favorinus. I like your Alexandria, Titianus; still it is not a great

ou with roses in their hair and win

the Alexand

ome, and the fair Greeks at

thian horses," cried the Empress's chambe

in a confidential manner on the arm of the prefect, to whom he was

waiting as if I

tronomer, Apollonius, and the philosopher and poet Pancrates i

ation of imperial and dignified Rome;

is the very incarnation of the haughtiness, the luxury pushed to insanity

His ways and doings are disgraceful; still you must allow that his manners are tinged with the charm of Hellenic beauty, that the Charites kissed him at his birth

who wants a model he

acquitted Phryne beca

did

gods, whose fairest works

e kept in the most

ul always to a certa

all the handsome Verus

Romans, free alike from spite or carefulness, he troubles himself with no doctrines of virtue, and a

s pains so far as

as he

tor which residence her husband had decided on inhabiting, drew up her shoulders and pinched her lips as if in pain, while Verus turned a face of indignation-a fac

and through his blue-black hair, which was only slightly grizzled at the temples and flowed uncurled, but in soft wavin

that threatens mischief to us all, and his trumpet voice cannot hurt yo

rian de

wants to be back with her children, and as praetor, it is mo

tate the Empress deeply, for her head, which had seemed almost a fixture during her conversation with Titianus, now shook so

hat had fallen from her hair, an

is intolerable. Let us se

d Verus, as pleased as a wilf

ng him with her finger. "Show me the stone-it is

quitted the hall with th

Now can you contrive that Ptolemaeus and Favorinus sha

asier" was

tius the information that he might count on having probabl