nd! Hardly comprehensible by
the vulgar mind! But, even so, it is not the end of what I mean to give
them. To-day I have racked their limbs; but I have yet to strike them to
the heart, as they have stricken me!"

He ceased, and after a short pause repeated unhesitatingly, and as though
by a sudden impulse, the lines with which Euripides ends several of his
tragedies:

"Jove in high heaven dispenses various fates;
And now the gods shower blessings which our hope
Dared not aspire to, now control the ills
We deemed inevitable. Thus the god
To these hath given an end we never thought."

--Potter's translation.

And this was the end of the revolting scene, for, as he spoke, Caesar
pushed away his cup and sat staring into vacancy, so pale that his
physician, foreseeing a fresh attack, brought out his medicine vial.

The praetorian prefect gave a signal to the rest that they should not
notice the change in their imperial host, and he did his best to keep the
conversation going, till Caracalla, after a long pause, wiped his brow
and exclaimed hoarsely: "What has become of the Egyptian? He was to bring
in the living prisoners--the living, I say! Let him bring me them."

He struck the table by his couch violently with his fist; and then, as if
the clatter of the metal vessels on it had brought him to himself, he
added, meditatively: "A hundred thousand! If they burned their dead here,
it would take a forest to reduce them to ashes."

"This day will cost him dear enough as it is," the high-priest of
Alexander whispered; he, as idiologos, having to deposit the tribute from
the temples and their estates in the imperial treasury. He addressed his
neighbor, old Julius Paulinus, who replied:

"Charon is doing the best business to-day. A hundred thousand obolus in a
few hours. If Tarautas reigns over us much longer, I will farm his
ferry!"

During this whispered dialogue Theocritus the favorite was assuring
Caesar in a loud voice that the possessions of the victims would suffice
for any form of interment, and an ample number of thank-offerings into
the bargain.

"An offering!" echoed Caracalla, and he pointed to a short sword which
lay beside him on the couch. "That helped in the work. My father wielded
it in many a fight, and I have not let it rust. Still, I doubt whether in
my hands and his together it ever before yesterday slaughtered a hundred
thousand."

He lo