LITMIR.BIZ

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performed.

      Through the crowd pushed two small parties of gladiators, three in each, hired for the occasion of a company that let them out. Then ensued a fight – not mimic, but very real, in front and round the pyre. Now a hard-pressed gladiator ran and was pursued, turned sharply and hacked at his follower. This was continued till three men had fallen and had been stabbed in the breast. Whereupon, the survivors sheathed their swords, bowed and withdrew.

      The torches were now put into the hands of Duilia and Domitia, and with averted faces they applied the fire to the fagot, and a sheet of flame roared up and enveloped the dead man.

      And now the mourners raised their loudest cries, tore their hair, scarified their cheeks with their nails; pipes, flutes, horns were blown. In a paroxysm of distress, partly real, partly feigned, a rush was made to the pyre, and all who got near cast some offering into the flames – cakes, flowers, precious stuffs, rings, bracelets, and coins.

      Duilia, in tragic woe, disengaged a mass of artificial hair from her head, and cast it into the fire. Then rang out the sacramental cry: – “I, licet! You are permitted to retire,” and gladly, sick at heart and faint, Domitia was supported rather than walked home.

      Some hours later, when the ashes of the defunct had been collected and deposited in an urn, which was conveyed to the mausoleum, Lucius Lamia came to the house and inquired for the ladies.

      He was informed that the widow was too much overcome by her feelings to see any one, but that Domitia was in the tablinum and would receive him.

      He at once entered the hall and stepped up into the apartment where she was seated, looking pale and worn, with tear-reddened eyes.

      She rose, and with a sweet sad smile, extended her hand to Lamia.

      “No, Domitia,” said he gently, “as your dear father gave me permission on the wharf at Cenchræa, I will claim the same privilege now.”

      She held her cold, tear-stained cheek to him without a word, then returned to and sank on her stool.

      “I thank you, dear friend, and almost brother,” she said. “You spoke nobly of my father, though not more nobly than he deserved. Here, my Lucius, is a present for you, I intrust it to you – his sword, which he used so gallantly, on which he fell, and still marked with his blood.”

      CHAPTER IX.

      SHEATHED

      According to an Oriental legend, the dominion of Solomon over the spirits resided in the power of his staff on which he stayed himself. So long as he wielded that, none might disobey.

      But the Jins sent a white ant up through the floor, that ate out the heart of the rod, so that when he leaned on it, it gave way and resolved itself into a cloud of fine powder. Solomon fell, and his authority was at an end forever.

      The termites that consumed the core of the sceptre of Nero were his own vices and follies. Its power was at an end and his fall as sudden as in the case of Solomon, and as unexpected.

      In March he was possessed of dominion over the world, and was at the head of incalculable forces. In June all was dissolved in the dust of decay; he was prostrate, helpless, bereft of the shadow of authority, unable to command a single slave. The first token of what was about to take place was this.

      In Rome the rabble was kept in good humor by the Cæsars distributing among them bread gratis, and entertaining them with shows free of charge.

      During the winter, contrary winds had delayed the corn-ships from Egypt, and the amount of bread distributed was accordingly curtailed. Games were, indeed, promised, but these would serve as condiments to the bread and not as substitutes. Then a vessel arrived in port, and the hungry people believed that she was laden with the wished-for corn. When, however, they learned that her cargo was white sand for strewing the arena at the sports, they broke into a storm of discontent and swept, howling insulting words, under Nero’s windows.

      Next day all Rome heard that Galba, at the head of the legions of Spain and Gaul, was marching into Italy, and that none of the troops of Nero sent to guard the frontier of the Alps would draw a sword in his defence.

      The prince, now only seriously alarmed, bade his household guard conduct him to Ostia, where he would mount the vessel that had discharged its load of sand, and escape to Egypt. They contemptuously refused, and disbanded. Then, in an agony of fear, Nero left the Palatine, and fled across the river to the Servilian mansion that adjoined the racecourse, to light which he had burned Christians swathed in tarred wraps.

      There he found none save his secretary Epaphroditus, whom he had sent there to be chained at the door, and to act as porter because he had offended him. Guards, freedmen, courtiers, actors, all had taken to their heels, but not before they had pillaged the palace.

      He wandered about the house, knocking at every door, and nowhere meeting with an answer.

      Night by this time had settled in, murk and close, but at intervals electric flashes shivered overhead.

      Then suddenly the earth reeled, and there passed a sound as of chariot wheels rolling heavily through the streets; yet the streets were deserted. Trembling, despairing, Nero crouched on his bed, bit his nails till he had gnawed them to the quick, then started up and hunted for his jewel case. He would fly on foot, carrying that, hide in some hovel, till danger was past. But a thievish slave had stolen it.

      Sick at heart, picking, then biting at his nails, shrinking with apprehension at the least noise, wrapping a kerchief about a finger where blood came, he looked with dazed eyes at the red flare of the heavenly fires pulsating through his open door.

      He heard a step and ran out, to encounter a freedman, Phaon by name, who was coming along the passage, holding aloft a torch, attended by two slaves.

      The wretched prince clung to him, and entreated that he might not be left alone; that Phaon would protect him, and contrive a means of escape.

      “Augustus!” answered the freedman, “I am not ungrateful for favors shown me, but my assistance at this hour is unavailing. I am but one man, a stranger, a Greek, and all Rome, all Italy, the entire world, have risen against you.”

      “I must fly. They will allow me to earn my livelihood on the stage. Of what value to any man is my life?”

      “My lord, in what value have you held the lives of the thousands that you have taken? Each life cut off has raised against you a hundred enemies. All will pursue, like a pack of hounds baying for the blood of him who murdered their kinsfolk. Even now I passed one – Lucius Ælius Lamia, – and he stayed me to inquire where you might be found. In his hand he held an unsheathed sword.”

      Nero shrieked out; then looked timidly about him, terrified at the sound of his own voice.

      “Let us hide. Disguise me. Get me a horse. I cannot run, I am too fat; besides, I have on my felt slippers only.”

      Phaon spoke to one of his slaves, and the man left.

      “Master,” said the freedman, “Do not deceive yourself. There is no escape. Prepare to die as a man. Slay yourself. It is not hard to die. Better so fall than get into the hands of implacable enemies.”

      “I cannot. I have not the courage. I will do it only when everything fails. I have many theatrical wigs. I can paint my face.”

      “Sire! the people are so wont to see your face besmeared with color, that they are less likely to recognize a face bleached to tallow.”

      “I have a broad-brimmed fisherman’s hat. I wear it against becoming freckled. That will shade my face. Find me an ample cloak. Here, at length, comes Sporus.”

      An eunuch appeared in the doorway.

      Breathless, in short, broken sentences, Nero entreated him to look out in his wardrobe for a sorry mantle, and to bring it him.

      “But whither will – can you go?” asked Phaon. “The Senate has been assembled – it has been convoked for midnight to vote your deposition and death.”

      “I will go before it. Nay! I will haste to the Forum, I will mount the Tribune. I will ask to be given

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