CAESAR DIES

by Talbot Mundy




I. IN THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR COMMODUS



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 pleasure, were taking the air in chariots, in litters, and on
foot; their linen clothes were as riotously picturesque as was the
fruit displayed in open shop-fronts under the colonnades, or as the
blossom on the trees in public gardens, which made of the city, as seen
from the height of the citadel, a mosaic of green and white.

The crowd on the main thoroughfares was aristocratic; opulence was
accented by groups of slaves in close attendance on their owners; but
the aristocracy was sharply differentiated. The Romans, frequently less
wealthy (because those who had made money went to Rome to spend it)--
frequently less educated and, in general, not less dissolute--despised
the Antiochenes, although the Romans loved Antioch. The cosmopolitan
Antiochenes returned the compliment, regarding Romans as mere duffers in
depravity, philistines in art, but capable in war and government, and
consequently to be feared, if not respected. So there was not much