no one to enter the room; only old Adventus, who was half blind, was permitted to assist them in succoring the sufferer.  He had been raised by Caracalla from the humble office of letter-carrier to the highest dignities and the office of his private chamberlain; but the leech availed himself by preference of the assistance of this experienced and quiet man, and between them they soon brought Caesar to his senses.  Caesar then lay pale and exhausted on a couch which had hastily been arranged, his eyes fixed on vacancy, scarcely able to move a finger.  Alexander held his trembling hand, and when the physician, a stout man of middle age, took the artist’s place and bade him retire, Caracalla, in a low voice, desired him to remain.

As soon as Caesar’s suspended faculties were fully awake again, he turned to the cause of his attack.  With a look of pain and entreaty he desired Alexander to give him the tablets once more; but the artist assured him—­and Caracalla seemed not sorry to believe—­that he had crushed the wax in his convulsion.  The sick man himself no doubt felt that such food was too strong for him.  After he had remained staring at nothing in silence for some time, he began again to speak of the gibes of the Alexandrians.  Surrounded as he was by servile favorites, whose superior he was in gifts and intellect, what had here come under his notice seemed to interest him above measure.

He desired to know where and from whom the painter had got these epigrams.  But again Alexander declared that he did not know the names of the authors; that he had found one at the public baths, the second in a tavern, and the third at a hairdresser’s shop.  Caesar looked sadly at the youth’s abundant brown curls which had been freshly oiled, and said:  “Hair is like the other good gifts of life.  It remains fine only with the healthy.  You, happy rascal, hardly know what sickness means!” Then again he sat staring in silence, till he suddenly started up and asked Alexander, as Philostratus had yesterday asked Melissa: 

“Do you and your sister belong to the Christians?”

When he vehemently denied it, Caracalla went on:  “And yet these epigrams show plainly enough how the Alexandrians feel toward me.  Melissa, too, is a daughter of this town, and when I remember that she could bring herself to pray for me, then—­My nurse, who was the best of women, was a Christian.  I learned from her the doctrine of loving our enemies and praying for those who despitefully treat us.  I always regarded it as impossible; but now—­your sister—­What I was saying just now about the hair and good health reminds me of another speech of the Crucified one which my nurse often repeated—­how long ago!—­’To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath.’  How cruel and yet how wise, how terribly striking and true!  A healthy man!  What more can he want, and what abundant gifts that best of all gifts will gain for him!  If he is visited by infirmity—­only look at me!—­how much misery I have suffered from this curse, terrible enough in itself, and tainting everything with the bitterness of wormwood!”