The Project Gutenberg EBook of Imperial Purple, by Edgar Saltus

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Title: Imperial Purple

Author: Edgar Saltus

Posting Date: July 9, 2009 [EBook #4250]
Release Date: July, 2003
First Posted: December 19, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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IMPERIAL PURPLE

By

EDGAR SALTUS

CONTENTS

I. That Woman
II. Conjectural Rome
III. Fabulous Fields
IV. The Pursuit of the Impossible
V. Nero
VI. The House of Flavia
VII. The Poison in the Purple
VIII. Faustine
IX. The Agony

I

THAT WOMAN

When the murder was done and the heralds shouted through the thick
streets the passing of Caesar, it was the passing of the republic they
announced, the foundation of Imperial Rome.

There was a hush, then a riot which frightened a senate that frightened
the world. Caesar was adored. A man who could give millions away and
sup on dry bread was apt to conquer, not provinces alone, but hearts.
Besides, he had begun well and his people had done their best. The
House of Julia, to which he belonged, descended, he declared, from
Venus. The ancestry was less legendary than typical. Cinna drafted a
law giving him the right to marry as often as he chose. His mistresses
were queens. After the episodes in Gaul, when he entered Rome his
legions warned the citizens to have an eye on their wives. At seventeen
he fascinated pirates. A shipload of the latter had caught him and
demanded twenty talents ransom. "Too little," said the lad; "I will
give you fifty, and impale you too," which he did, jesting with them
meanwhile, reciting verses of his own composition, calling them
barbarians when they did not applaud, ordering them to be quiet when he
wished to sleep, captivating them by the effrontery of his assurance,
and, the ransom paid, slaughtering them as he had promised.

Tall, slender, not handsome, but superb and therewith so perfectly sent
out that Cicero mistook him for a fop from whom the republic had
nothing to fear; sp