help to bring the criminals to justice.  But when a whole population is accused, when it is beyond the power of human justice to separate the innocent from the guilty, punishment is the prerogative of the god.  He will visit on this city the crimes it has committed against you; and I implore you, in the name of your noble and admirable mother—­whom it has been my privilege to entertain under this roof, and who in gratitude for the favors of Serapis—­”

“And have I grudged sacrifices?” Caesar broke in.  “I have done my utmost to win the graces of your god—­and with what success?  Everything that can most aggrieve the heart of man has befallen me here under his eyes.  I have as much reason to complain of him as to accuse the reprobate natives of your city.  He, no doubt, knows how to be avenged; the three-headed monster at his feet does not look like a lap-dog.  Why, he would despise me if I should leave the punishment of the criminals to his tender mercies!  Nay, I can do that for myself.  Though you have seen me in many cases show mercy, it has always been for my mother’s sake.  You have done well to remind me of her.  That lady—­she is, I know, a votary of your god.  But to me the Alexandrians have dared to violate the laws of hospitality; to her they were cordial hosts.  I will remember that in their favor.  And if many escape unpunished, I would have the traitors to know that they owe it to the hospitality shown to my mother by their parents, or perhaps by themselves.”

He was here interrupted by the arrival of Aristides, who entered in great haste and apparently pleased excitement.  His spies had seized a malefactor who had affixed an epigram of malignant purport to the statue of Julia Domna in the Caesareum.  The writer was a pupil of the Museum, and had been taken in the stadium, where he was boasting of his exploit.  A spy, mingling with the crowd, had laid hands on him, and the captain of the watch had forthwith hurried to the Serapeum to boast of a success which might confirm him in his yet uncertain position.  The rough sketch of the lines had been found on the culprit, and Aristides held the tablets on which they were written while Caracalla listened to his report.  Aristides was breathless with eagerness, and Caesar, snatching the tablets impatiently from his hand, read the following lines: 

“Wanton, I say, is this dam of irreconcilable brothers!” “Mean you Jocasta?” “Nay, worse—­Julia, the wife of Severus.”

“The worst of all—­but the last!” Caracalla snarled, as, turning pale, he laid the tablets down.  But he almost instantly took them up again, and handing the malignant and lying effusion to the high-priest, he exclaimed, with a laugh: 

“This seals the warrant!  Here is my mother slandered, too!  Now, the man who sues for mercy condemns himself to death!” And, clinching his fist, he muttered, “And this, too, is from the Museum.”

Timotheus, meanwhile, had also read the lines.  Even paler than Caracalla, and fully aware that any further counsel would be thrown away and only turn the emperor’s wrath against himself, he expressed his anger at this calumny directed against the noblest of women, and by a boy hardly free from school!