he fruit of
trees is a gift from Nature, and all that she brings forth has some good
in it; but what you offer to the world is hollow and poisonous. Your
rhetoric gives it an attractive exterior, and that, too, comes from the
Museum. There they are shrewd enough to create new gods, which start up
out of the earth like mushrooms. If it should only occur to them, they
would raise murder to the dignity of god of gods, and you to be his
high-priest."

"That would be your office," interposed the philosopher.

"You shall see," returned the emperor, laughing shrilly, "and the
witlings of the Museum with you! You use the knife; but hear the words of
the master: The teeth of wild beasts and their claws are weapons not to
be despised. Your father and brother, and she who taught me what to think
of the virtue and faith of Alexandrian women, shall tell you this in
Hades. Soon shall every one of those follow you thither who forgot, even
by a glance of the eye, that I was Caesar and a guest of this city! After
the next performance in the Circus the offenders shall tell you in the
other world how I administer justice. No later than the day after
to-morrow, I imagine, you may meet there with several companions from the
Museum. There will be enough to clap applause at the disputations!"
Caracalla ended his vehement speech with a jeering laugh, and looked
round eagerly for applause from the "friends" for whose benefit his last
words had been spoken; and it was offered so energetically as to drown
the philosopher's reply.

But Caracalla heard it, and when the noise subsided he asked his
condemned victim:

"What did you mean by your exclamation, 'And yet I would that death might
spare me'?"

"In order, if that should come true," returned the philosopher quickly,
his voice trembling with indignation, "that I might be a witness of the
grim mockery with which the all-requiting gods will destroy you, their
defender."

"The gods!" laughed the emperor. "My respect for your logic grows less
and less. You, the skeptic, expect the deeds of a mortal man from the
gods whose existence you deny!"

Then cried Philip, and his great eyes burning with hatred and indignation
sought the emperor's: "Till this hour I was sure of nothing, and
therefore uncertain of the existence of a god; but now I believe firmly
that Nature, by whom everything is carried out according to everlasting,
immutable laws, and who casts out and destroys anything that threate