e bronze doors set in green-
veined marble, bathers passed into the vast frigidarium, whose marble
plunge was surrounded by a mosaic promenade beneath a bronze and marble
balcony.

There men and women mingled indiscriminately, watching the divers,
conversing, matching wits, exchanging gossip, some walking briskly
around the promenade while others lounged on the marble seats that were
interspaced against the wall between the statues.

There was not one gesture of indecency. A man who had stared at a woman
would have been thrown out, execrated and forever more refused
admission. But out in the street, where the litter-bearers and
attendants whiled away the time, there were tales told that spread to
the ends of the earth.

On a bench of black marble, between two statues of the Grecian Muses,
Pertinax sat talking with Bultius Livius, sub-prefect of the palace.
They were both pink-skinned from plunging in the pool, and the white
scars, won in frontier wars, showed all the more distinctly. Boltius
Livius was a clean-shaven, sharp-looking man with a thin-lipped air of
keenness.

"This dependence on Marcia can easily be overdone," he remarked. His
eyes moved restlessly left and right. He lowered his voice. "Nobody
knows how long her hold over Caesar will last. She owns him at present
owns him absolutely--owns Rome. He delights in letting her revoke his
orders; it's a form of self-debauchery; he does things purposely to
have her overrule him. But that has already lasted longer than I
thought it would."

"It will last as long as she and her Christians spy for him and make
life pleasant," said Pertinax.

"Exactly. But that is the difficulty," Livius answered, moving his eyes
again restlessly. There was not much risk of informers in the Thermae,
but a man never knew who his enemies were. "Marcia represents the
Christians, and the idiots won't let well enough alone. By Hercules,
they have it all their own way, thanks to Marcia. They are allowed to
hold their meetings. All the statutes against them are ignored. They
even go unpunished if they don't salute Caesar's image! They are
allowed to preach against slavery. It has got so now that if a man
condemned to death pretends he is a Christian they're even allowed to
rescue him out of the carceres! That's Juno's truth: I know of a dozen
instances. But it's the old story: Put a beggar on a horse and he will
demand your house next. There's no satisfying them.