ascally freedmen who forewarned
the miscreant Sextus about the emperor's intentions?--and for not
realizing that Norbanus was undoubtedly in league with him? How can you
explain your having let Norbanus get away is something I confess I am
unable to imagine."

"Conjure your imagination!" Pertinax retorted. "I am to inquire into
the suitability of Antioch or Daphne as the site of the Olympic games
that the emperor proposed to preside over in person. You can imagine, I
suppose, how profitable that would be for Antioch--and you. Am I to
tell the emperor that robbers in the mountains and the laxity of local
government make the selection of Antioch unwise?"

They stared at each other silently across the table, Pertinax erect and
definite, the governor of Antioch indefinite and stroking his chin with
fat, white fingers.

"It would be simplest," said the governor of Antioch at last, "to have
Norbanus executed."

"Some one should always be executed when the emperor signs proscription
lists!" said Pertinax. "Has it ever occurred to you to wonder how many
soldiers in the legions in the distant provinces were certified as dead
before they left Rome?"

The governor of Antioch smiled meanly. He resented the suggestions that
there might be tricks he did not understand.

"I have a prisoner," he said, "who might be Norbanus. He has been
tortured. He refused to identify himself."

"Does he look like him?"

"That would be difficult to say. He broke into a jeweler's and was very
badly beaten by the slaves, who slashed his face, which is heavily
bandaged. He appears to be a Roman and is certainly a thief, but beyond
that--"

"Much depends on who is interested in him," Pertinax suggested. "Usually
a man's relatives--"

But the governor of Antioch's fat hand made a disparaging careless
gesture. "He has no friends. He has been in the carceres (the cells in
which prisoners were kept who had been sentenced to death. Under Roman
law there was practically no imprisonment for crime. Fines, flogging,
banishment were the substitutes for execution.) more than a month. I
was reserving him for execution by the lions at the next public games.
Truth to tell, I had almost forgotten him. I will write out a warrant
for Norbanus' execution and it shall be attended to this morning. And by
the way--regarding the Olympic games--"

"The emperor, I think, would like to see them held in Antioch," said
Pertinax.

The merchants str