"She fell a victim to the clumsiness of the praetorians."

"Indeed!" interrupted the legate Quintus Flavius Nobilior, who had
granted Alexander's life to the prayer of the twins Aurelius; and
Macrinus also forbade any insulting observations as to the blameless
troops whom he had the honor to command.

But the Egyptian was not to be checked; he went on eagerly: "Pardon, my
lords. It is perfectly certain, nevertheless, that it was a praetorian--
his name is Rufus, and he belongs to the second cohort--who pierced the
lady Berenike with his spear."

Flavius here begged to be allowed to speak, and reported how Berenike had
sought and found her end. And he did so as though he were narrating the
death of a heroine, but he added, in a tone of disapproval: "Unhappily,
the misguided woman died with a curse on you, great Caesar, on her
treasonable lips."

"And this female hero finds her Homer in you!" cried Caesar. "We will
speak together again, my Quintus."

He raised a brimming cup to his lips and emptied it at a draught; then,
setting it on the table with such violence that it rang, he exclaimed
"Then you have brought me none of those whom I commanded you to capture?
Even the feeble girl who had not quitted her father's house you allowed
to be murdered by those coarse monsters! And you think I shall look on
you with favor? By this time to-morrow the gem-cutter and his son
Alexander are here before me, or by the head of my divine father you go
to the wild beasts in the Circus."