"Unto Caesar"

The footsteps of the men quickly died away on the marble floors of the atrium, their harsh voices and loud laughter only reached this secluded spot as a faint, intangible echo.

And even thus did the mighty Empire hurry headlong to its fall; with shouts of joy and cries of exultation, with triumphal processions, with music, with games and with flowers.

"He does not often come at this hour," said Dea Flavia, whose face had become very white and set at mention of a name which indeed had the power of rousing terror in every heart...

He started as a man suddenly wakened from sleep, and once or twice his eyes closed and opened again ere they rested finally on the broad back bent in a curve before him.

Dea Flavia stood there still and calm, her young face scarce less white than the clinging folds of her tunic, her unfathomable eyes fixed upon the pathetic group at her feet: th...

The younger men were still inclined to rebel. They felt that they were in great numbers and that they were strong: they believed--with that optimism of excited youth--that their...

The interlude had caused the crowd to linger on despite the approach of noonday, an hour always devoted, almost sacred, to rest. But now that decorum was once more restored and...

The gorgeous palace of Augustus appeared quite deserted when the praefect of Rome finally made his way to the vestibule. He crossed the magnificent inner peristylium, the tall,...

He had exchanged his embroidered tunic for a gorgeous synthesis of crimson embroidered with gold, which set off to perfection the somewhat barbaric splendour of his personality,...

Taurus Antinor had some difficulty in finding the clothes that he wanted, which would serve as a disguise for the Caesar and himself, and he had to explore the huge deserted pal...

And late that day when Dea Flavia was preparing for rest she dismissed her tire-women, keeping only her young slaves around her, and then ordered Licinia to attend on her this n...

Caius Nepos was the spokesman of the party. His high rank and great influence with the guard under his command gave him certain privileges which his friends were always willing...

The auctioneer had descended from the rostrum. Panting after his exertions, perspiring profusely under the heat of the noonday sun, he was wiping the moisture from his dripping...

And far away beyond the noise and tumult which ranged around the foot of the Palatine, the honey-coloured moon illumined with her weird and ghostly light the vast arena of the g...

As the day wore on, trade became more brisk and the work of the lictors more arduous, for the crowd was dense and the bargain-hunters eager to push to the front.

When after a few hours of light and troubled sleep Dea Flavia woke to partial consciousness, it seemed to her as if Phoebus Apollo had been driving his chariot through a sea of...

From the hour of midnight the streets and ways leading to the great Amphitheatre were alive with people, all tending toward the same goal: men and women in holiday clothes and l...

I pray you follow me now to an inner chamber in the palace of the mighty Caesar. A square room with walls of marble inlaid with precious stones, and with hangings of crimson sil...

He had a score or so of his guard with him and they remained at some little distance, in a compact group, with their short, bronze-hilted swords naked in their hands.

He had not moved away from the rostrum all the while that the throng of obsequious sycophants and idle lovesick youths had crowded round Dea Flavia. Now he spoke over his should...

He threw himself upon a couch and she, with her own hands, served him with wine and fruit. He refused to eat but drank freely of the wine, whilst she stood beside him calmly wai...

Arminius Quirinius, the censor, was dead. He had died by his own hand, and thus was a life of extortion and of fraud brought to an ignominious end through the force of public op...

Not another word had been spoken on the subject of the Caesar or of his probable successor. The conspirators, somewhat sobered, had allowed the praefect to go without attempting...

The heat was intense! The glare from the tribunes opposite seemed to sear the eyes, and from below there rose to the nostrils that awful sickening stench of human blood.

From the triclinium on the right came the sound of loud laughter and the strains of a bibulous song, voices raised in gaiety and pleasure: Taurus Antinor recognised that of Caiu...

Afternoon and evening had gone by since that awful moment when the whole fell purpose of the Caesar's plan was revealed to her, and she saw Hortensius Martius standing unarmed a...

Three months had gone by since then. Rome had acclaimed the Caesar and rejoiced over his homecoming. There were holidays and spectacles, chariot races and gladiatorial combats,...

No doubt that for that first tense moment all thought of treachery, of the conspiracy, of the imperium and even of Dea Flavia, was absent from the young man's mind.

Dea Flavia was standing beside a tall stool, on the top of which--on a level with her hands--was a shapeless mass of clay. Her fingers buried themselves in the soft substance or...

Half an hour later Dea Flavia Augusta was in the tablinium. She had received Caius Nepos, the praetorian praefect, Marcus Ancyrus, the elder, my lords Hortensius Martius, Philip...

Aye! it was here now fully aroused. The praefect of Rome was popular with the plebs. His action in the arena had called forth unbounded enthusiasm. When he fell rolling into the...

Caius Julius Caesar Caligula was in excellent spirits, smiling and nodding to those around him and to his people all the time. His face certainly looked sallow and his eyes were...

Could any man at that moment have divined the secrets of the heart and looked into the thoughts of all these men, what a medley of terror and of lust, of rage and of jealousy, w...

Up in the gorgeously draped tribune, beneath the striped awning, the Emperor Caligula watched the arrival of his pet panther with a grin of delight upon his face. He rubbed his...

Huge gnarled tree-trunks were dragged into the arena, and so disposed as to afford shelter either for man or beast. By a mechanical device a stream of water some six foot wide w...

The hunter and the hunted! the lithe supple sinewy creature crawling with belly almost touching the ground and stealthy steps that made no sound on the sand of the arena.

In Chapter XXX, "plit from end to end" was changed to "split from end to end"; and "bow my hear down with shame" was changed to "bow my head down with shame".