ould be wholly divine.

It amused Rome, too, and his prodigalities in the circus were such that
Lampridus admits that the people were glad he was emperor. Neither
Caligula nor Nero had been as lavish, and neither Caligula nor Nero as
cruel. The atrocities he committed, if less vast than those of
Caracalla's, were more acute. Domitian even was surpassed in the
tortures invented by a boy, so dainty that he never used the same
garments, the same shoes, the same jewels, the same woman twice.

In spite of this, or perhaps precisely on that account, the usual
conspirators were at work, and one day this little painted girl, who
had prepared several devices for a unique and splendid suicide, was
taken unawares and tossed in the latrinae.

In him the glow of the purple reached its apogee. Rome had been
watching a crescendo that had mounted with the years. Its culmination
was in that hermaphrodite. But the tension had been too
great--something snapped; there was nothing left--a procession of
colorless bandits merely, Thracians, Gauls, Pannonians, Dalmatians,
Goths, women even, with Attila for a climax and the refurbishing of the
world.

Rome was still mistress, but she was growing very old. She had
conquered step by step. When one nation had fallen, she garrotted
another. To vanquish her, the earth had to produce not only new races,
but new creeds. The parturitions, as we know, were successful. Already
the blue, victorious eyes of Vandal and of Goth were peering down at
Rome; already they had whispered together, and over the hydromel had
drunk to her fall. The earth's new children fell upon her, not one by
one, but all at once, and presently the colossus tottered, startling
the universe with the uproar of her agony; calling to gods that had
vacated the skies; calling to Jupiter; calling to Isis; calling in
vain. Where the thunderbolt had gleamed, a crucifix stood. On the
shoulders of a prelate was the purple that had dazzled the world.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Imperial Purple, by Edgar Saltus

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