Adventure
Golden Antioch lay like a jewel at a mountain's throat. Wide, intersecting streets, each nearly four miles long, granite-paved, and marble-colonnaded, swarmed with fashionable loiterers. The gay Antiochenes, whom nothing except frequent earthquakes interrupted from pursuit of...
"This whole business is getting too confused for me," he grumbled, sitting down again. "You want to kill Commodus, as is reasonable. Marcia has ordered me to kill you, which is...
3. Chapter 3(In the fable, Andromeda had to be chained to a cliff to be devoured by a monster, in order to save her people from the anger of the god Poseidon. Perseus slew the monster.)
11. Chapter 11"I wish you would speak plainly, Galen. I have told you all my secrets. You have seen me risk my life a thousand times in the midst of Commodus' informers, coming and going, int...
6. Chapter 6"Where is Marcia? What will she do to me next? Is this some new scheme of hers to keep me from enjoying my manhood? Send them away! The next girl I catch in the corridor shall b...
2. Chapter 2"The men who could persuade themselves to do that, are persuaded that a worse brute might succeed him," Sextus answered. "It is no use killing a Commodus to find a Nero in his s...
10. Chapter 10Marcia buried her face in her hands and lay face downward on the couch. She was trembling in a struggle for self-mastery. Pertinax chewed at his finger-nails, which were the eve...
9. Chapter 9"Paulus," a scarred veteran answered (they were all forbidden to address him by any other name in that arena), "you have ordered us to keep that fellow for the birthday games. I...
7. Chapter 7The slave's voice was almost patronizing. Livius made up his mind, if he should live the day out, to sell the rascal to some farmer who would teach him with a whip what service...
5. Chapter 5There was nobility and love of virtue, cheek by jowl with beastliness, nor was it always easy to discover which was which; but the birds sang blithely in the cages in the portic...
4. Chapter 4Scylax, who was waiting for him, rode out of the gloom on the mare, leading the Cappadocian, and reined in near the gibbet, not quite sure yet who it was who strode toward him....
1. Chapter 1Golden Antioch lay like a jewel at a mountain's throat. Wide, intersecting streets, each nearly four miles long, granite-paved, and marble-colonnaded, swarmed with fashionable l...
12. Chapter 12"I should be first. I am guiltiest. I taught him in his youth," he remarked, smiling thinly. "I taught him how to loose the beast that lives in him, not intending that, of cours...