"Thou, Asklepios, dost look in amazement, and great Hygeia shakes her
head. And it is hard to say what moves me, who love another, to pray for
the blood-stained murderer for whom not another soul in his empire would
say a word to you. Nay, and I know not what it is. Perhaps it is but
pity; for he, who ought to be the happiest, is surely the most wretched
man under the sun. O great Asklepios, O bountiful and gracious Hygeia,
ease his sufferings, which are indeed beyond endurance! Nor shall you
lack an offering. I will dedicate a cock to you; and as the cock
announces a new day, so perchance shall you grant to Caracalla the dawn
of a new existence in better health.

"Alas, gracious god! but thou art grave, as though the offering were too
small. How gladly would I bring a goat, but I know not whether my money
will suffice, for it is only what I have saved. By and by, when the
youth I love is my husband, I will prove my gratitude; for he is as rich
as he is handsome and kind, and will, I know, refuse me nothing. And
thou, sweet goddess, dost not look down upon me as graciously as before;
I fear thou art angry. Yet think not"--and she gave a low laugh--"that I
pray for Caracalla because I care for him, or am in love with him. No,
no, no, no! my heart is wholly given to Diodoros, and not the smallest
part of it to any other. It is Caesar's misery alone that brings me
hither. Sooner would I kiss one of those serpents or a thorny hedgehog
than him, the fratricide in the purple. Believe me, it is true, strange
as it must seem.

"First and last, I pray and offer sacrifice indeed for Diodoros and his
recovery. My brother Alexander, too, who is in danger, I would fain
commend to you; but he is well in body, and your remedies are of no
effect against the perils which threaten him."