Caesar Dies

ad if he behaves himself, and w

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, ha

o poor condition; and if you keep them in, they kill themselves unless they're watched

last forever," Sex

t he doesn't debauch himself, so

him?" Sextus asked. "They would kill the man himself, of course, d

s shook

r 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 ag

tall us all," said Sextus. "Pertinax has only one chance: to be o

mile that rippled all around the corners of hi

ordered me to kill you the moment you make

sed her, o

es on me and if she ever begins to suspect me I woul

and me for two of these men! Send me in against him first. If he kills me, you next. One of us might

us. "They may be all like Commodus. I heard Gale

smiled

ng, I suppose, to Marc

e, 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 v

orridor, glancing into the cells, wher

he 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

y doing,"

mad the

f the journal Livius was keeping, she can henceforth hold that

has

and the Pescennius faction, and the Clodius Albinus faction. He had it all down in his journal. He

reak down under the str

denounce

. Nothing but sudden danger will ever bring Pertinax up

? And what has come over Ma

nounce herself to Commodus! She saw the

any time! Weren't you in Cornificia's house, with the guard at the g

e 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 t

y hoping she won't order me to do it, because the cat will be out of the bag t

by sending Commodus full information of the plot, involving Marcia head over heels. She is ready to betray Commodus if that should seem the sa

kin by betraying you and me. Talk softly. I say, listen! There isn't any safety anywhere with all these factions plotting each against the other,

g his body to have time

"However

st across the dazzling sand of the arena. "Somebody-some spy-is sure to inform him. There will be wholesale proscriptions. Co

like Commodus-that yo

You have made yourself a great name as Maternus, less, possibly, in Rome th

at heart and not their own personal ambition. No army of runaway slaves can ever do it. Nothing offends me more than that Commodus makes slaves his ministers, and I mean by that no offense to you, Narcissus, who are fit to

ed while Pertinax and all these others fight for too much! Let them have their too much and grow sick of it! What do you and I need beyond clothing, a weapon, armor, a girl or two and a safe place for retreat? I have heard Sardinia is wonderful. But if you still think you would rat

ur secret well-wishers; the deed makes you all men's enemy. How do you suppose I have escaped capture? It was simple enough. Every robber in Italy has called himself Maternus, so that I have seemed to be here, there, everywhere, aye, and often in three or four places at once!

king your neck trying to make and

k each hour I

us. "Help yourself once and for all to a bag full of gold in exchange for your father's estates tha

s lau

his estates, even that, and present outlawry is small compared to the zeal I have for restoring Rome's ancient liberties. But I don't deceive myself; I am not the man who can accomplish that; I can only help the one who can,

d that, his head

Cleander die; I have seen man after man, and woman after woman lose his favor suddenly. Banishment, death, the ergastulum, torture-and, what is much worse, the insults the brute heaps on any one he turns against-I am too wise to give that-" he spat on the flag-stones-"for the friendship of Commodus. And Commodus is Rome; you can't

certainly buy your freedom by betray

the same thing as a born fool, or so I have begun to think, since I attend on the emperor and have to hear so much talk of philosophy. Look you what philosophy has made of Commodus! Didn't Marcus Aurelius beget him from his own loins, and wasn't Marcus Aurelius the greatest of all philosophers? Didn't he s

to Rome," Sextus answered after a moment. "C

vilege? The temples where as many gods as there are, Romans yell for sacrifices to enrich the priests? The farms where the slave-gangs labor like poor old Sysyphus and are sold off in their old age to the contractors who clear the latrines, or to the galleys, or, if they're lucky, to the lime-kilns where they dry up like sticks and die soon? There is a woman in a side-street

liberty and can't imagine myself honorable unless Rome herself is honored first. When you and I are

nest!" sai

a Hercules who doesn't

bstitute anot

Narcissus objected, wea

nd I, Narcissus, have no honor-you a slave and I an outlaw. Let us wi

whichever road you take. Now go. These fellows mustn't recognize you. It is time to take them one by one into the exercising yard. I daren't take more than one at a time or they'd kill me even with the blunted pr