are girls, whom I have forgotten, whom I loved more than I love Rome. I
am a slave gladiator. I have been applauded by the crowds, but know
what that means, having seen other men go the same route. I am an
emperor's favorite, and I know what that means too; I saw Cleander die;
I have seen man after man, and woman after woman lose his favor
suddenly. Banishment, death, the ergastulum, torture--and, what is much
worse, the insults the brute heaps on any one he turns against--I am too
wise to give that--" he spat on the flag-stones--"for the friendship of
Commodus. And Commodus is Rome; you can't persuade me he isn't. Rome
turns on its favorites as he does--scorns them, insults them, throws
them on dung-heaps. That for Rome!" He spat again. "They even break
the noses off the statues of the men they used to idolize! They even
throw the statues on a dung-heap to insult the dead! Why should I set
Rome above my own convenience?"

"Well, for instance, you could almost certainly buy your freedom by
betraying me," said Sextus. "Why don't you?"

"Jupiter! How shall a man answer that? I suppose I don't betray you
because if I did I should loathe myself. And I prefer to like myself,
which I contrive to do at intervals. Also, I enjoy the company of
honest men, and I think you are honest, although I think you are also an
idealist--which, I take it, is the same thing as a born fool, or so I
have begun to think, since I attend on the emperor and have to hear so
much talk of philosophy. Look you what philosophy has made of Commodus!
Didn't Marcus Aurelius beget him from his own loins, and wasn't Marcus
Aurelius the greatest of all philosophers? Didn't he surround young
Commodus with all the learned idealists he could find? That is what I
am told he did. And look at Commodus! Our Roman Commodus! God
Commodus! I haven't murdered him because I am afraid, and because I