oric. He excused, explained away each
fault, vivified and magnified a hundred non-existent virtues, reared a
splendid word-fabric in praise of clemency. To what end? Before him
sat Caesar, and Drusus, and a dozen Romans more, who, with cold,
unmoved Italian faces, listened to his artificial eloquence, and gave
no sign of pity. And as he went on, the sense of his hopeless position
overcame the wretched man, and his skill began to leave him. He became
thick and confused of speech; his periods tripped; his thought moved
backward. Then his supple tongue failed him utterly, and, in cries and
incoherent groans, he pleaded for the right to exist.

"Man," said the Imperator, when the storm of prayers and moans was
over, "you conspired against Quintus Drusus, my friend. You
failed--that is forgiven. You conspired, I have cause to believe,
against Pompeius, my enemy, but a Roman--that is unproved, and
therefore forgiven. You conspired with Pothinus against me--that was
an offence touching me alone, and so that, too, may be forgiven. But
to the prayers of a father you had wronged, you answered so that you
might gloat over his pain. Therefore you shall die and not live. Take
him away, guards, and strike off his head, for his body is too vile to
nail to any cross."

The face of the Greek was livid. He raised his manacled hands, and
strained at the irons in sheer despair. The soldiers caught him
roughly to hale him away.

"Mercy! kyrios! kyrios!" he shrieked. "Spare me the torments of Hades!
The Furies will pursue me forever! Pity! Mercy!"

Cornelia had reentered the room, and saw this last scene.

"When my uncle and Ahenobarbus were nigh their deaths," she said
stingingly, "this man observed that often, in times of mortal peril,
skeptics call on the gods."

"The rule is proved," said Caesar, casting a cynical smile after the
soldiers with their victim. "All men need gods, either to worship when
they live, or to dread when they die."

Chapter XXV

Calm after Storm

I

Like all human things, the war ended. The Alexandrians might rage and
dash their numbers against the palace walls. Ganymed and young
Ptolemaeus, who had gone out to him, pressed the siege, but all in
vain. And help came to the hard-pressed Romans at last. Mithridates, a
faithful vassal king, advanced his army over Syria, and came down into
the Delta, sweeping all before him. Then Caesar effected a junction
with the forces of his ally, and there was