Caesar Dies | Page 8

the
aqueducts I built, and for the peace I left along the border. But I also
left dry bones, and sons of dead men who will teach their grandsons
how to hate the name of Rome! I sent a hundred thousand slaves from
Africa. Sometimes, when I have dined unwisely and there is no Galen
near to freshen up my belly juices, I have nightmares, in which men
and women cry to me for water that I took from them to pour into the
cities. I have learned this, Galen: Do one thing wisely and you will
commit ten follies. You are lucky if you have but ten failures to detract
from one success--as lucky as a man who has but ten mistresses to
interfere with his enjoyment of his wife!"
He spoke of mistresses because the girls were coming down the temple
steps to take part in the sunset ceremony. The torches they carried were
unlighted yet; their figures, draped in linen, looked almost
super-humanly lovely in the deepening twilight, and as they laid their
garlands on the marble altar near the temple steps and grouped
themselves again on either side of it their movements suggested a
phantasmagoria fading away into infinite distance, as if all the universe
were filled with women without age or blemish. There began to be a

scent of incense in the air.
"We only imitate this kind of thing in Rome," said Pertinax. "A larger
scale, a coarser effect. What I find thrilling is the sensation they
contrive here of unseen mysteries. Whereas--"
"There won't be any mystery left presently! They'll strip your last veil
from imagination!" Sextus interrupted, laughing. "Men say Hadrian
tried to chasten this place, but he only made them realize the artistic
value of an appearance of chastity, that can be thrown off. Hark! The
evening hymn."
The torches suddenly were lighted by attendant slaves. The stirring,
shaken sistra wrought a miracle of sound that set the nerves all tingling
as the high priest, followed by his boys with swinging censers and the
members of the priestly college, four by four, came chanting down the
temple steps. To an accompanying pleading, sobbing note of flutes the
high priest laid an offering of fruit, milk, wine and honey in the midst
of the heaped-up garlands (for Apollo was the god of all fertility as well
as of healing and war and flocks and oracles). Then came the grand
Homeric hymn to Glorious Apollo, men's and boys' and women's
voices blending in a surging paean like an ocean's music.
The last notes died away in distant echoes. There was silence for a
hundred breaths; then music of flute and lyre and sistra as the priests
retreated up the temple steps followed by fanfare on a dozen trumpets
as the door swung to behind the priests. Instantly, then, shouts of
laughter--torchlight scattering the shadows amid gloom--green
cypresses --fire--color splurging on the bosom of the water--babel of
hundreds of voices as the gay Antiochenes swarmed out from behind
the trees--and a cheer, as the girls by the altar threw their garments off
and scampered naked along the river-bank toward a bridge that joined
the temple island to the sloping lawns, where the crowd ran to await
them.
"Apollo having healed the world of sin, we now do what we like!" said
Sextus. "Pertinax, I pledge you continence for this one night! Good
Galen, may Apollo's wisdom ooze from you like sweat; for all our
sakes, be you the arbiter of what we drink, lest drunkenness deprive us
of our reason! Comites, let us eat like warriors--one course, and then
discussion of tomorrow's plan."
"Your military service should have taught you more respect for your

seniors, as well as how to eat and drink temperately," said Pertinax.
"Will you teach your grandmother to suck eggs? I was the first
grammarian in Rome before you were born and a tribune before you
felt down on your cheek. I am the governor of Rome, my boy. Who are
you, that you should lecture me?"
"If you call that a lecture, concede that I dared," Sextus answered. "I
did not flatter you by coming here, or come to flatter you. I came
because my father tells me you are a Roman beyond praise. I am a
Roman. I believe praise is worthless unless proven to the hilt--as for
instance: I have come to bare my thoughts to you, which is a bold
compliment in these days of treachery."
"Keep your thoughts under cover," said Pertinax, glancing at the
steward and the slaves who were beginning to carry in the meal. But he
was evidently pleased, and Sextus's next words pleased him more:
"I am ready to do more than think about you, I will follow where you
lead--except into licentiousness!"