The Project Gutenberg EBook of Caesar Dies, by Talbot Mundy

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Title: Caesar Dies

Author: Talbot Mundy

Release Date: December 9, 2003 [EBook #10422]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAESAR DIES ***

Produced by Jake Jaqua

CAESAR DIES

by Talbot Mundy

I. IN THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR COMMODUS

Golden Antioch lay like a jewel at a mountain's throat. Wide,
intersecting streets, each nearly four miles long, granite-paved, and
marble-colonnaded, swarmed with fashionable loiterers. The gay
Antiochenes, whom nothing except frequent earthquakes interrupted from
pursuit of pleasure, were taking the air in chariots, in litters, and on
foot; their linen clothes were as riotously picturesque as was the
fruit displayed in open shop-fronts under the colonnades, or as the
blossom on the trees in public gardens, which made of the city, as seen
from the height of the citadel, a mosaic of green and white.

The crowd on the main thoroughfares was aristocratic; opulence was
accented by groups of slaves in close attendance on their owners; but
the aristocracy was sharply differentiated. The Romans, frequently less
wealthy (because those who had made money went to Rome to spend it)--
frequently less educated and, in general, not less dissolute--despised
the Antiochenes, although the Romans loved Antioch. The cosmopolitan
Antiochenes returned the compliment, regarding Romans as mere duffers in
depravity, philistines in art, but capable in war and government, and
consequently to be feared, if not respected. So there was not much
mingling of the groups, whose slaves took example from their masters,
affecting in public a scorn that they did not feel but were careful to
assert. The Romans were intensely dignified and wore the toga, pallium
and tunic; the Antiochenes affected to think dignity was stupid and its
trappings (forbidden to them) hideous; so they carried the contrary
pose to extremes. Patterning herself on Alexandria, the city had become
to all intents and purposes the eastern capital of Roman empire. North,
south, east and west, the trade-routes intersected, entering the city
th