“These are strange times, Sextus!”

“Aye!  And it is a strange beast we have for emperor!”

“Be careful!”

Sextus glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Scylax followed closely and prevented any one from overhearing.  There was an endless procession now, before and behind, all bound for Daphne.  As the riders passed under the city gate, where the golden cherubim that Titus took from the Jews’ temple in Jerusalem gleamed in the westering sun, Sextus noticed a slave of the municipium who wrote down the names of individuals who came and went.

“There are new proscriptions brewing,” he remarked.  “Some friends of ours will not see sunrise.  Well—­I am in a mood to talk and I will not be silenced.”

“Better laugh then!” Norbanus advised.  “The deadliest crime nowadays is to have the appearance of being serious.  None suspects a drunken or a gay man.”

Sextus, however, was at no pains to appear gay.  He inherited the moribund traditions that the older Cato had typified some centuries ago.  His young face had the sober, chiseled earnestness that had been typically Roman in the sterner days of the Republic.  He had blue-gray eyes that challenged destiny, and curly brown hair, that suggested flames as the westering sun brought out its redness.  Such mirth as haunted his rebellious lips was rather cynical than genial.  There was no weakness visible.  He had a pugnacious neck and shoulders.

“I am the son of my father Maximus,” he said, “and of my grandsire Sextus, and of his father Maximus, and of my great-great-grandsire Sextus.  It offends my dignity that men should call a hog like Commodus a god.  I will not.  I despise Rome for submission to him.”

“Yet what else is there in the world except to be a Roman citizen?” Norbanus asked.

“As for being, there is nothing else,” said Sextus.  “I would like to speak of doing.  It is what I do that answers what I am.”

“Then let it answer now!” Norbanus laughed.  He pointed to a little shrine beside the road, beneath a group of trees, where once the image of a local deity had smiled its blessing on the passer-by.  The bust of Commodus, as insolent as the brass of which the artist-slaves had cast it, had replaced the old benign divinity.  There was an attendant near by, costumed as a priest, whose duty was to see that travelers by that road did their homage to the image of the human god who ruled the Roman world.  He struck a gong.  He gave fair warning of the deference required.  There was a little guard-house, fifty paces distant, just around the corner of the clump of trees, where the police were ready to execute summary justice, and floggings were inflicted on offenders who could not claim citizenship or who had no coin with which to buy the alternative reprimand.  Roman citizens were placed under arrest, to be submitted to all manner of indignities and to think themselves fortunate if they should escape with a heavy fine from a judge who had bought his office from an emperor’s favorite.