Domitia

Two days passed, and Domitia remained undisturbed. No tidings reached her from Rome, but to her great relief the Cæsar Domitian did not appear. That a meeting with him must take...

Domitia was at Gabii. Cornelia, the Vestal Great Mother had sent her thither in her own litter, and attended by her own servants, but with the assistance of the knight Celer, wh...

Lucius and Domitia stepped out of the boat; he moored it to the side, and they walked together to the little temple. This was not one to which a college of priests was attached,...

Hardly had Eboracus conveyed Domitia out of the Forum into a place of safety, than a rush of people down the street threatened to drive him back in the direction whence he had c...

His sister Cæsonia had been the wife of the mad prince Caligula. She was not beautiful, but her flexible mouth, her tender eyes, the dimples in her cheeks, her exquisite grace o...

On her return to Rome and the palace, Domitia did not see the Emperor, but he sent her notice to be prepared to appear with him in public at the opening of the Circensian Games...

He glanced about him in quest of Longa Duilia, but that lady had retired precipitately to the _gynaikonitis_, or Lady’s hall, where she had summoned to her a bevy of female slav...

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 di...

With the declining of the sun, the light wind had died away, and, although the sea heaved after the recent storm, like the bosom of a sleeping girl, in the stillness of the air,...

The visitor to Rome may see the very spot where stood her house and garden. For this good woman converted the latter into a place of sepulture for the Christians, and the cataco...

“As you have assented so graciously, I will push my advance a little further and say—Return with me to-day. Let us travel together. If you will—I have a double litter—and we can...

“Gain, child?—everything. The satisfaction of having got further up the ladder; of exciting the envy of your late companions, the admiration of the vulgar, the mistrust of those...

“My dear child,” said Duilia, “I never did a better stroke of policy than that supper a few evenings ago. It went off quite charmingly, without a hitch. I allowed that good Flav...

Domitia paced the room, in an agony of mind, now shivering with cold, then with face burning. But it was not the humiliations to which she had been subjected that so affected he...

“Now, for a while I am as one who has cast off a nightmare,” said Domitia to herself. “He is away—why he has attended Titus to the Sabine land I know not, unless the Emperor cou...

Happily, as Corbulo had considered it, this house had escaped in the conflagration of Rome under Nero. This, however, was a matter of some regret to Duilia, who would have prefe...

There was a horrible past to which no reference might be made. The true British slave, Eboracus, was ever at hand to help—when needed. Never a day, never half a day, but his hon...

“Lady and Augusta,” answered the Magian, “remember that when thou lookest out upon the Sabine Mountains, on one day all is so distinct that thou wouldst suppose a walk of an hou...

No notice was taken by Domitian of the presence in the palace of the murdered actor’s widow. It concerned him in no way, and he allowed the unfortunate woman to remain there, un...

“That I saw,” said the slave, “I shall report that it yielded. One must obey a master even to the risk of the cross. Did’st see the noble Lamia, how ready he was? He assumed the...

When the Romans were a pastoral people at Alba, then it was the duty of the young girls to attend to the common hearth and keep the fire ever burning. To obtain fresh fire was n...

The day was in decline, and although the season was winter yet the air was not cold. The mountains of Greece lay in the wake like a bank of purple cloud tinged with gold.

She rose at once. So also did Julia, the daughter of Titus, and the Emperor and his train left the circus; but as they withdrew there rose ringing cheers, the people standing on...

She was well aware that he would come to her into the garden, if she did not present herself within, and she preferred to speak with him away from her mother.

Flashes as of lightning shot from each side of a galley as she was being rowed into port. She was a bireme, that is to say, had two tiers of oars; and as simultaneously the doub...

“It is of no use in the world, Plancus, your attempting to reason me out of a fixed resolve,” said the lady Longa Duilia, peevishly. “My Corbulo shall not have a shabby funeral.”

“My dear,” said Longa Duilia to her daughter, “with wit such as you have, that might be drawn through a needle’s eye, it is positively necessary to have you married as quickly a...

No sooner had Domitia got the signet from the finger of the dead Emperor, than she hastened from the room, trembling, almost blind as to her course, but armed with more than her...

A rumor, none knew from whom it arose, spread rapidly in whispers, sending a quiver of alarm, distress, pity, through the entire wedding party, reaching last of all him most con...

The anarchy which had lasted from the 11th June, 68, when Nero perished, came to an end on the 20th December, in the ensuing year. In that terrible year of 69, three emperors ha...

On reaching the street, Domitia saw at once that the aspect of the populace was changed. Instead of the busy hum of trade, the calls of hucksters, the laugh of the mirthful, a s...

“He had no right to do so. Let him entertain him. I desire to see the end. Run. The roof is on fire—the eagles will be down—or melt away.”

Domitian had been accorded by his brother a portion of the palace of Tiberius on the Palatine Hill, that was crowded with imperial residences; and Domitia had been brought there...

At the earliest rays of dawn the auguries were taken, not as of old by the flight of birds, but by inspection of the liver and heart of a sheep, that was slaughtered for the pur...

For some moments Domitia remained without stirring. But then, roused by a glare of lightning, succeeded by a crash so loud as to shake the palace, she saw in the white blaze the...

“What can I do for thee, Domitia?” asked Titus, who was pacing the room; he halted before the young wife of his brother, who was kneeling on the mosaic floor.

Eboracus brushed aside some urchins and girls blocking the door, looking in with eager, twinkling eyes at the strange lady and at the set out of dolls on the table.

“The mistake of inviting the uncle in place of the nephew to my little supper. As to that supper, I flatter myself it was perfect—so finished in every detail, as becomes our pos...

Eboracus was able to open a way for the litter through the crowd, now clustered on the bank of the dyke, watching as the workmen threw down earth and stones, and buried deep tha...

The young girl had coaxed the big Briton to take her in a boat to the galley, so as to meet and embrace her father, before he came on shore.

Summer was over, and winter storms were beginning to bluster, and the flies were dull with cold and only maintained alive by the warmth of the chambers, heated by underground st...

The dramatic composer has this great advantage over the novelist, that when he has to allow for a certain amount of time,—it may be for years—to elapse between the parts of his...

Sleep-drunk, with clouded brain, eyes that saw as in a dream, feet that moved involuntarily, Domitia descended from the litter and tottered in at a doorway when informed that sh...

I. The Port of Cenchræa II. An Ill-Omen III. Corbulo IV. There Is No Star V. The Ship of the Dead VI. I Do Not Know VII. The Face of the Dead VIII. The Sword of the Dead IX. She...

I. An Appeal II. The Fish III. In the ‘Insula’ IV. Another Appeal V. Atrium Vestæ VI. For the People VII. ‘The Blues Have It!’ VIII. The Lower Stool IX. Glyceria X. The Accursed...