Caesar Dies by Talbot Mundy
page 130 of 185 (70%)
page 130 of 185 (70%)
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"Let none move!" he commanded. "I will crush the foot of any man who stirs!" Attendants, clinging to the heads of four gray stallions that fought and kicked, brought out his chariot and others shut the gate behind it. Commodus admired the team a minute, then examined the new high wheels of the gilded chariot, that was hardly wider than a coffin--a thing that a man could upset with a shove and built to look as flimsy as an egg shell. Suddenly he seized the reins and leaped in, throwing up his right hand. If he could have ruled his empire as he drove that chariot he would have far outshone Augustus, for whose memory men sighed. He managed them with one hand. There was magnetism sent along the reins to play with the dynamic energy of four mad stallions as gods amuse themselves with men. If empire had amused him as athleticism did there would have been no equal in all history to Commodus. In a chariot no other athlete could have balanced, on a course providing not one unobstructed stretch of fifty yards, he drove like Phoebus breaking in the horses of the Sun, careering this and that way, weaving patterns in among the frightened men who stood like posts for him to drive around. He missed them by a hand's breadth--less! He took delight in driving at them, turning in the last half-second, smiling at a blanched face as he wheeled and wove new figures down another zigzag avenue of men. The frenzy of the team inspired him; the rebellion of the stallions, made mad by the persistent, sudden turns, aroused his own astonishing enthusiasm. He accomplished the impossible! He made new laws of motion, breaking them, inventing others! He became a god in |
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