I appeal to Vespasian Caesar, to whom I will
tell all. I am a Roman noble of no mean rank, and I have a right to
be tried by Caesar, not by a packed court, whose president has a grudge
against me for private matters."

"Insolent!" shouted Domitian. "Your appeal shall be laid before Caesar,
as it must--that is, if he will hear it. Tell us now, where is that
woman whom you bought in the Forum, for we desire her testimony?"

"Prince, I do not know," answered Marcus. "It is true that she came to
my house, but then and there I gave her freedom and she departed from it
with her nurse, nor can I tell whither she went."

"I thought that you were only a coward, but it seems that you are a
liar as well," sneered Domitian. Then he consulted with the officers
and added, "We judge the case to be proved against you, and for having
disgraced the Roman arms, when, rather than be taken prisoner, many a
meaner man died by his own hand, you are worthy of whatever punishment
it pleases Caesar to inflict. Meanwhile, till his pleasure is known, I
command that you shall be confined in the private rooms of the military
prison near the Temple of Mars, and that if you attempt to escape thence
you shall be put to death. You have liberty to draw up your case in
writing, that it may be transmitted to Caesar, my father, together with a
transcript of the evidence against you."

"Now," replied Marcus bitterly, "I am tempted to do what you say I
should have done before, die by my own hand, rather than endure such
shameful words and this indignity. But that my honour will not suffer.
When Caesar has heard my case and when Titus, my general, also gives his
verdict against me, I will die, but not before. You, Prince, and you,
Captains, who have never drawn sword outside the streets of Rome, you
call me coward, me, who have served with honour through five campaigns,
who, from my youth till now have been in arms, and this upon the
evidence of a renegade Jew who, for years, has been my private enemy,
and of a soldier whom I scourged as a thief. Look now upon this breast
and say if it is that of a coward!" and rending his robes asunder,
Marcus exposed his bosom, scarred with four white wounds. "Call my
comrades, those with whom I have fought in Gaul, in Sicily, in Egypt and
in Judaea, and ask them if Marcus is a coward? Ask that Jew even, to whom
I gave his life, whether Marcus is a coward?"

"Have done with your boasting," said Domitian, "and hide those