caricature from a friend, and declared that if he had seen it he should
have destroyed it on the spot. Macrinus here tried to excuse the spy, by
remarking that this zealous official had only tried to set his services
in a favorable light. The falsehood could not be approved, but was
excusable. But he had scarcely finished speaking, when his opponent, the
praetor, Lucius Priscillianus, observed, with a gravity he but rarely
displayed:

"I should have thought that it was the first duty of the man who ought to
be Caesar's mainstay and representative here, to let his sovereign hear
nothing but the undistorted truth. Nothing, it seems to me, can be less
excusable than a lie told to divine Caesar's face!"

A few courtiers, who were out of the prefect's favor, as well as the
high-priest of Serapis, agreed with the speaker. Caracalla, however,
paid no heed to them, but sat with his eyes fixed on the door, deeply
wounded in his vanity by the mere existence of such a caricature.

He had not long to wait. But when the wrapper was taken off the clay
figures, he uttered a low snarl, and his flushed face turned pale.
Sounds of indignation broke from the bystanders; the blood rose to his
cheeks again, and, shaking his fist, he muttered unintelligible threats,
while his eyes wandered again and again to the caricatures. They
attracted his attention more than all else, and as in an April day the
sky is alternately dark and bright, so red and white alternated in his
face. Then, while Alexander replied to a few questions, and assured him
that the host of the "Elephant" had been very angry, and had gladly
handed them over to him to be destroyed, Caracalla seemed to become
accustomed to them, for he gazed at them more calmly, and tried to affect
indifference. He inquired of Philostratus, as though he wished to be