I made believe I did not hear him.

The Emperor began to read. His voice, too, had nothing distinctive, neither pleasing nor displeasing, running in a straight line somewhere between a bass and a tenor, except occasionally when it rose to a pitch and broke abruptly. Then he would clear his throat and begin again in a straight line.

“Everything which is in any way beautiful is beautiful in itself, and terminates in itself, not having praise as part of itself. Neither worse than nor better is a thing made by being praised,” continued the Emperor.

The Empress yawned. She motioned to the slave that fanned her to come to her right.

“Thou art a little soul, bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.”

Faustina’s right hand dropped leisurely over the chair and touched the boy.

The boy shivered.

“Does another do me wrong? Let him look to it. He has his own disposition, his own activity.”

The slave continued to fan his mistress, obedient to his training.

“Thou canst pass thy life in an equable flow of happiness, if thou canst go by the right way, and think and act in the right way.”

The Empress turned her head. This compelled the boy to move nearer.

The boy trembled.

The Empress smiled.

“Neither the labor which the hand does nor that of the foot is contrary to nature, so long as the foot does the foot’s work and the hand the hand’s.”

The fan almost dropped from the boy’s hand.

“Be thou erect, or be made erect.”

The boy straightened up as if in obedience to the Imperial command. His face was flushed but he still maintained his courtierlike demeanor. However, as he moved, the fan for a moment touched the face of the Empress.

“Different things delight different people.”

The Empress yawned. The boy bit his lips till they bled. The fan fluttered, tipped somewhat, and like a butterfly alighting on a rose, touched her breast lightly.

“Whatever one does or says, I must be good.”

Faustina was not listening to Marcus Aurelius. Amused by the perturbance of her toy she again, almost negligently, brushed the lad with her fingertips.

“Men will do the same things, nevertheless, even though they should burst.”

The boy’s heart must have been near bursting. He almost swayed, but he did not dare to interrupt the fan’s rhythmic motion.

Faustina continued to tantalize the lad.

“When thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtues of those who love with thee.”

Suddenly the gleam in the eyes of Faustina went out like a lamp. Her hand dropped slowly.

The Emperor arose. The audience exclaimed, “Magnificent! Profound! Unequaled!”

Marcus Aurelius motioned to the Empress to lead the guests into the banquet hall. Lazily the Empress draped her garments. The boy knelt at her feet. She ignored him. He crawled after her.

“Augusta! Faustina!”

The Empress looked straight ahead. The boy had ceased to exist.

Bewildered, the boy attempted to halt his mistress. She stepped upon his hand as if it were a thing of stone or an insect. The boy shivered from pain, but he crawled on, embracing her knee.

The boy’s lips moved. “I love you, I adore you,” he whispered.

The Empress motioned to a gigantic slave. Her face smiled but her lips said, “Flog him.”

The boy disappeared between the great arms of the man.

At the banquet messengers from the north and east reached the Emperor telling of the reverse of the Romans and the struggle with the Barbarians.

Marcus Aurelius spoke of the superiority of virtue and intelligence over brute force.

“I long for peace, Car-ta-phal,” he said to me. “Alas, the gods will it differently.”

He lowered his head, and kept silent for a while. He liked to attitudinize. “Much worse than the Barbarians are our enemies at home.”

“The Christians– —”

“Particularly the Christians. I have burnt them and thrown them to the lions and hounded them as unclean beasts, but all my efforts have been in vain.”

“Their religion, Your Majesty, glorifies martyrdom. If they are tortured to death, they are promised a whole eternity of pleasure in heaven. Who would not barter a few hours of agony for endless joy? The Christians, particularly, have the sense of the merchant. They were originally Hebrews.”

“That is true. But how shall I exterminate them?”

“What is more damning than half-praise?”

“An excellent aphorism, Car-ta-phal, but I fail to discover its application.”

He had already adapted several things I had said, and I knew that sooner or later my remark would appear in his Meditations.

“Recognize Jesus as a minor divinity…some half-forgotten Hindu god.”

“Perhaps,” the Imperator remarked, “he is a minor god. The world’s imagination is stale. People rarely invent new gods.”

“Your Majesty, why not admit Jesus officially to the Pantheon? Make him one of the gods, and he will be no longer the one god. Both Christians and Romans will forget their political grievances, buy sacrifices, and by invoking one additional divinity, will triumph against the Barbarians.”

“You are indeed my good counsellor, Car-ta-phal. I must propose your plan to the Senate.”

The temple was crowded with soldiers and women. The priests were busy taking offerings and sacrifices to the gods. Mars, above all, was invoked. But Venus was not neglected. It was difficult to push through the crowd, but I was obstinate. I would not leave the temple until I had seen the statue of the new god.

“Car-ta-phal,” some one called. I managed to turn my head, but could not swing my shoulders about.

“Apollodorus.”

“You are seeking what I seek, Car-ta-phal.”

We reached an angle which had the shape of a large alcove. “This must be it,” I said. Apollodorus, a little near-sighted, asked, “Which one?”

“The cross, look!”

He approached and looked intently. “What a hideous thing! A god upon a cross! A god with a writhing face and holes in his hands and feet! Car-ta-phal, it is horrible!”

Apollodorus laughed. “And I feared that Christianity would supplant our gods and our temples! A religion with a god on a cross, bleeding from his hands and his feet!”

I joined Apollodorus in laughter.

A woman, dressed in black, her face partly veiled, approached the cross, and knelt before it for a long while, then rose and, kissing the feet and hands, left.

“Apollodorus, we may still be wrong. We have forgotten woman. She is the mother. She pities…”

XVIII: THE EMPEROR-EMPRESS—HELIOGABALUS DANCES—THE GIANT

MARCUS AURELIUS was dead. Heliogabalus, the crowned transvestite, cuddled himself daintily on the throne of the Cæsars.

The people vociferated at the top of their voices that they were robbed to support an army too weak to cope with a band of undisciplined and uncouth Barbarians, and a monarch—from the East—who danced and painted his lips. Foreigners preferred not to accept the honor of Roman citizenship, and many Romans pretended to have been born in the provinces, for the taxes imposed upon the citizens were much higher than those upon subjects.

The mother of the Imperator was too hysterical and his ministers were too frivolous to govern; while he himself had become engrossed in the friendship for his adopted cousin, a taciturn young athlete, Bassianus Alexianus. His grandmother, however, who still retained a modicum of serenity and common sense, insisted that something had to be done, or the nation would rise in rebellion.

“What?” Heliogabalus shouted, exasperated.

“Augustus, High Priest of the Eternal Sun, man appreciates an unexpected gift a great deal more than that which is due him.”

The Emperor made no comment, but turned to me with the smile of a young coquette.