Part 1 (1/2)
Caesar Dies
by Talbot Mundy
I IN THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR COMMODUS
Golden Antioch lay like a jewel at astreets, each nearly four ranite-paved, and marble-colonnaded, swaray Antiochenes, who except frequent earthquakes interrupted fro the air in chariots, in litters, and on foot; their linen clothes were as riotously picturesque as was the fruit displayed in open shop-fronts under the colonnades, or as the blossoardens, which ht of the citadel, a hfares was aristocratic; opulence was accented by groups of slaves in close attendance on their owners; but the aristocracy was sharply differentiated The Romans, frequently less wealthy (because those who had made money went to Roeneral, not less dissolute-despised the Antiochenes, although the Romans loved Antioch The cos Romans as mere duffers in depravity, philistines in art, but capable in war and government, and consequently to be feared, if not respected So there was not roups, whose slaves took exa in public a scorn that they did not feel but were careful to assert The Roa, palliunity was stupid and its trappings (forbidden to them) hideous; so they carried the contrary pose to extre herself on Alexandria, the city had become to all intents and purposes the eastern capital of Roman empire North, south, east and west, the trade-routes intersected, entering the city through the ornate gates in crenelated li caravans were overlooked by legionaries brought from Gaul and Britain, quartered in the capitol on Mount Silpius at the city's southern lih, leaving their deposit as a river drops its silt; were ever- increasing One quarter, walled off, hued at the travelers' inns or haunted the temples, the wine-shops and the lupanars In that quarter, too, there were barracks, with compounds and open-fronted booths, where slaves were exposed for sale; and there, also, were the caravanserais within whose walls the kneeling carew fetid with the reek of dung There was a market-place for elephants and other oriental beasts
Each of Antioch's four divisions had its oall, pierced by arched gates Those were necessary No more turbulent and fickle population lived in the knoorld-not even in Alexandria Whenever an earthquake shook down blocks of buildings-and that happened nearly as frequently as the hysterical racial riots-the Ro coreat teridironed streets
Roman officials and the wealthier Macedonian Antiochenes lived on an island, formed by a curve of the River Orontes at the northern end within the city wall The never-neglected proble which troops could an
On the island was the palace, glittering with gilt and nificently until Ro a proconsular paternal kind of tyranny originating in the Roman patria potestas There was not much sentiment about it Rome became the foster-parent, the possessor of authority There was duty, principally exacted frooverned in the fores, mostly reserved for the rulers and their parasites, ere much more numerous than anybody liked Competition made the parasites as discontented as their prey
But there were definite advantages of Roh their co at private entertainments mocked the Romans and invented accusations of injustice and extortion that were even eous than the truth Not since the days when Antioch inherited the luxury and vices of the Greeks and Syrians, had pleasure been so organized or its coorously The deance of Coood Obedience and flattery ell rewarded Citizens who yielded to extortion and refrained fro of infor night
But the informers were ubiquitous and unknohich was another reason why the Ro socially e of treason, based on nothing ht set even a Roman citizen outside the pale of ordinary law and make him liable to torture If convicted, death and confiscation followed Since the deification of the emperors it had becoes or statues; ies were on the coins; statues were in the streets Commodus, to who need of funds to defray the titanic expense of the games that he lavished on Rome and the ”presents” hich he studiously nursed the army's loyalty So it ise to be taciturn; expedient to choose one's friends deliberately; not far removed from ht suggest the possibility of a political intrigue But it was also unwise to woo solitude; a solitary ht perish by the rack and sword for lack of witnesses, if charged with some serious offense
So there were comradeshi+ps more loyal the more that treachery stalked abroad Because seriousness drew attention frohts werehid such counsels as uely defined boundaries of treason
sextus, son of Maximus, rode not alone Norbanus rode beside him, and behind them Scylax on the famous Arab er on the recent chariot races Scylax was a slave but no less, for that reason, sextus' friend
Norbanus rode a skewbald Cappadocian that kicked out sidewise at pedestrians; so there was opportunity for private conversation, even on the road to Daphne of an afternoon in spring, when nearly all of fashi+onable Antioch was beginning to flow in that direction Horses, litters and chariots, followed by crowds of slaves on foot with the provisions for ate, so wide of the skewbald Cappadocian stallion's heels
”If Pertinax should really coirl with hi way of finishi+ng the sentences that other folk began
”True When he is not ca Pertinax finds a woman irresistible”
”And naturally, also, none resists a general in the field!” Norbanus added ”So our handsome Pertinax performs his vows to Aphrodite with a constancy that the Goddess rewards by forever putting lovely women in his way! Whereas Stoics like you, sextus, and unfortunates like me, who don't kno to amuse a woman, are made notorious by one least lapse from our austerity The handsome, dissolute ones have all the luck The roisterers at Daphne will invent such scandalous tales of us tonight as will pursue us for a lustrum, and yet there isn't a chance in a thousand that we shall even enjoy ourselves!”
”Yes I wish noe had chosen any other looone into the desert Pertinax would have brought his own last desperate adorer, and a couple e-that a overnment should lose his head the moment a woman smiles at him”
”He doesn't lose his head-much,” sextus answered ”But his father was a firewood seller in a village in Liguria That is why he so loves s-austerity inflicted on hireat Jupiter! If you and I had risen frorammarian and the friend of Marcus Aurelius; if you and I were as handso discipline in Britain and conducting two or three successful wars; and if either of us had such a wife as Flavia titiana, I believe we could besmirch ourselves hts in women so much as that he thinks debauch is aristocratic Flavia titiana is unfaithful to him She is also a patrician and unusually clever He has never understood her, but she is witty, so he thinks her wonderful and tries to imitate her immorality But the only woman who really sways him is the proudish Cornificia, who is almost as incapable of treachery as Pertinax hiovernor the City of Roine what Rome would be like without hiovernor!”
”These are strange tie beast we have for elanced over his shoulder to make sure that Scylax followed closely and prevented any one fro There was an endless procession now, before and behind, all bound for Daphne As the riders passed under the city gate, where the golden cherubilea sun, sextus noticed a slave of the municipium rote down the names of individuals who ca,” he remarked ”Some friends of ours will not see sunrise Well-I am in a h then!” Norbanus advised ”The deadliest cri serious None suspects a drunken or a gay ay He inherited the moribund traditions that the older Cato had typified so face had the sober, chiseled earnestness that had been typically Roray eyes that challenged destiny, and curly brown hair, that suggested flaht out its redness Such enial There was no weakness visible He had a pugnacious neck and shoulders
”I arandsire sextus, and of his father Maxirandsire sextus It offendslike Commodus a God I will not I despise Rome for submission to him”
”Yet what else is there in the world except to be a Ro, there is nothing else,” said sextus ”I would like to speak of doing It is what I do that anshat I ahed He pointed to a little shrine beside the road, beneath a group of trees, where once the i on the passer-by The bust of Commodus, as insolent as the brass of which the artist-slaves had cast it, had replaced the old benign divinity There was an attendant near by, costumed as a priest, whose duty was to see that travelers by that road did their hoe of the huave fair warning of the deference required There was a little guard-house, fifty paces distant, just around the corner of the clump of trees, where the police were ready to execute sus were inflicted on offenders who could not claim citizenshi+p or who had no coin hich to buy the alternative reprimand Roman citizens were placed under arrest, to be subnities and to think themselves fortunate if they should escape with a heavy fine froht his office from an emperor's favorite
Most of the riders ahead disht hands raised Many of them tossed coins to the priest's attendant slave sextus rery scowl He drew rein,of nity appears to