gh
to give the dagger-thrust. But the praetorian guard, that makes and
unmakes emperors, has been tasting the sweets of tyranny ever since
Marcus Aurelius died. They despise their 'Roman Hercules' (Commodus'
favorite name for himself)--who doesn't? But they grow fat and enjoy
themselves under his tyranny, so they would never consent to leaving him
unguarded, as happened to Nero, for instance, or to replacing him with
any one of the caliber of Aurelius, if such a man could be found."

"Well, then, what do we go to talk about?" Norbanus asked.

"We go for information."

"Dea dia! (the most mysterious of all the Roman deities) We inform
ourselves that Rome has been renamed 'The City of Commodus'--that
offices are bought and sold--that there were forty consuls in a year,
each of whom paid for the office in turn--that no man's life is safe--
that it is wiser to take a cold in the head to Galen than to kiss a
mule's nose (it was a common superstition that a cold in the head could
be cured by kissing a mule's nose)--and then what? I begin to think
that Pertinax is wiser to amuse himself with women after all!"

Sextus edged his horse a little closer to the skewbald and for more than
a minute appeared to be studying Norbanus' face, the other grinning at
him and making the stallion prance.

"Are you never serious?" asked Sextus.

"Always and forever, melancholy friend of mine! I seriously dread the
consequences of that letter that you wrote to Rome! Unlike you, I have
not much more than life to lose, but I value it all the more for being
less encumbered. Like Apollonius, I pray for few possessions and no
needs! But what I have, I treasure; I propose to live long and make
use of life!"

"And I!" retorted Sextus.

With a gesture of disgust, he turned to stare behind him at the crowd on
its way to Daphne, making such a business of pleasure as reduced the
pleasure to a toil of Sisyphus (who had to roll a heavy stone
perpetually up a steep hill in the underworld. Before he reached the top
the stone always rolled down again).

"I have more than gold," said Sextus, "which it seems to me that any
crooked-minded fool may have. I have a spirit in me and a taste for
philosophies; I have a feeling that a man's life is a gift entrusted to
him by the gods--for use--to be preserved--"

"By writing foolish letters, doubtless!" said Norbanus. "Come along,
let us gallop. I am weary of the backs of all these roisterers."