"g101v10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ebers Georg)

[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]





A THORNY PATH

By Georg Ebers

Volume 11.



CHAPTER XXX.

Scarcely had Macrinus closed the door behind him, when Caracalla threw
himself exhausted on the throne, and ordered wine to brought.

The gloomy gaze he bent upon the ground was not affected this time.
The physician noted with anxiety how his master's breast heaved and his
eyelids quivered; but when he offered Caesar a soothing potion, he waved
him away, and commanded him to cease from troubling him.

For all that, he listened a little later to the legate, who brought
the news that the youths of the city assembled on the race-course
were beginning to be impatient. They were singing and applauding
boisterously, and the songs they so loudly insisted on having repeated
would certainly not contain matter flattering to the Romans.

"Leave them alone," answered Caesar, roughly. "Every line is aimed at me
and no other. But the condemned are always allowed their favorite meal
before the last journey. The food they love is venomous satire. Let
them enjoy it to the full once more!--Is it far to Zminis's prison?"

The reply was in the negative; and as Caracalla exclaimed, "So much the
better!" a significant smile played on his lips.

The high-priest of Serapis had looked on in much distress of mind. He,
as the head of the Museum, had set high hopes on the youth who had come
to such a terrible end. If Caesar should carry his threats into
execution, there would be an end to that celebrated home of learning
which, in his opinion, bore such noble fruits of study. And what could
Caracalla mean by his dark saying that the sport and mockery of those
youths below was their last meal? The worst might indeed be expected
from the fearful tyrant who was at once so deeply wounded and so
grievously offended; and the high-priest had already sent messengers--