e the reprobate natives
of your city. He, no doubt, knows how to be avenged; the three-headed
monster at his feet does not look like a lap-dog. Why, he would despise
me if I should leave the punishment of the criminals to his tender
mercies! Nay, I can do that for myself. Though you have seen me in many
cases show mercy, it has always been for my mother's sake. You have done
well to remind me of her. That lady--she is, I know, a votary of your
god. But to me the Alexandrians have dared to violate the laws of
hospitality; to her they were cordial hosts. I will remember that in
their favor. And if many escape unpunished, I would have the traitors to
know that they owe it to the hospitality shown to my mother by their
parents, or perhaps by themselves."

He was here interrupted by the arrival of Aristides, who entered in great
haste and apparently pleased excitement. His spies had seized a
malefactor who had affixed an epigram of malignant purport to the statue
of Julia Domna in the Caesareum. The writer was a pupil of the Museum,
and had been taken in the stadium, where he was boasting of his exploit.
A spy, mingling with the crowd, had laid hands on him, and the captain of
the watch had forthwith hurried to the Serapeum to boast of a success
which might confirm him in his yet uncertain position. The rough sketch
of the lines had been found on the culprit, and Aristides held the
tablets on which they were written while Caracalla listened to his
report. Aristides was breathless with eagerness, and Caesar, snatching
the tablets impatiently from his hand, read the following lines:

"Wanton, I say, is this dam of irreconcilable brothers!" "Mean you
Jocasta?" "Nay, worse--Julia, the wife of Severus."

"The worst of all--but the last!" Caracalla snarled, as, turning pale, he
laid the tablets down. But he almost instantly took them up again, and
handing the malignant and lying effusion to the high-priest, he
exclaimed, with a laugh:

"This seals the warrant! Here is my mother slandered, too! Now, the man
who sues for mercy condemns himself to death!" And, clinching his fist,
he muttered, "And this, too, is from the Museum."

Timotheus, meanwhile, had also read the lines. Even paler than Caracalla,
and fully aware that any further counsel would be thrown away and only
turn the emperor's wrath against himself, he expressed his anger at this
calumny directed against the noblest of women, and by a boy hardly free
from school!