"Some one should always be executed when the emperor signs proscription
lists!" said Pertinax. "Has it ever occurred to you to wonder how many
soldiers in the legions in the distant provinces were certified as dead
before they left Rome?"

The governor of Antioch smiled meanly. He resented the suggestions that
there might be tricks he did not understand.

"I have a prisoner," he said, "who might be Norbanus. He has been
tortured. He refused to identify himself."

"Does he look like him?"

"That would be difficult to say. He broke into a jeweler's and was very
badly beaten by the slaves, who slashed his face, which is heavily
bandaged. He appears to be a Roman and is certainly a thief, but beyond
that--"

"Much depends on who is interested in him," Pertinax suggested. "Usually
a man's relatives--"

But the governor of Antioch's fat hand made a disparaging careless
gesture. "He has no friends. He has been in the carceres (the cells in
which prisoners were kept who had been sentenced to death. Under Roman
law there was practically no imprisonment for crime. Fines, flogging,
banishment were the substitutes for execution.) more than a month. I
was reserving him for execution by the lions at the next public games.
Truth to tell, I had almost forgotten him. I will write out a warrant
for Norbanus' execution and it shall be attended to this morning. And by
the way--regarding the Olympic games--"