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They are to be seen in the Circus of Caracalla, on the Appian way; of this, and of this alone, enough still exists to ascertain the form, structure, and parts of a Roman course. It was surrounded by two parallel walls which supported the seats of the spectators.
Melissa, encouraged by the presence of her kind protector, went on: But, great Caesar, you will release my father and my other brother?" "Perhaps," replied Caracalla. "First we will see how this one carries out his task."
The constitution could not save when it was itself lost. Never was there a more wanton and determined disregard of those great rights for which the nations had bled, than under the emperors. Every conservative influence that came from the people was hopelessly suppressed. The reign of beneficent emperors, like the Antonines, and of monsters like Nero and Caracalla, was alike fatal.
As the high-priest ceased speaking, she laid her hand on Caesar's, and, when he looked up at her in surprise, she whispered to him, so low and so quickly that hardly any one observed it "Not Zminis; he is our mortal enemy!" Caracalla scarcely glanced at the face of the daring girl, but he saw how pale she had turned.
Caracalla then went up to the prisoner, and dragging him, weakly resisting, from the dark back ground of the room to the window, he asked with a sneer: "And what are assassins like in Alexandria? Ah, ha! this is not the face of a hired cut-throat! Only thus do they look whose sharp wit I will answer with still sharper steel."
But Caracalla furiously broke in: "And woe to you if your god refuses me the only thing I crave in return for so many sacrifices revenge, complete and sanguinary; atonement from great and small alike!" But he interrupted himself with the exclamation: "He grants it! Now for the tool I need."
Alexander and Philostratus could offer no explanation; but when the proconsul, Julius Paulinus, observed that the figure was offering the apples for money, as Caesar offered the Roman citizenship to the provincials, he knew for what, Caracalla nodded agreement. He then provisionally appointed Aristides to the coveted office. The Egyptian should be informed as to his fate.
The lion, who lay chained beside the throne, stirred as he caught sight of the new-comers, which caused Caracalla to exclaim to Melissa: "You have stayed away from me so long that my 'Sword of Persia' fails to recognize you. Were it not more to my taste to show you how dear you are to me, I could be angry with you, coy bird that you are!"
"It may be from neglect of this precaution," said Porphyry, "that our Maximus finds it so much easier to evoke the shades of Commodus and Caracalla than those of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius; and that these good spirits, when they do come, have no more recondite information to convey than that virtue differs from vice, and that one's grandmother is a fitting object of reverence."
Caesar insisted. "Even then you can not want me," she murmured. "You mean," said Caracalla, bitterly, "that you are afraid to come back. You mean that you would rather keep out of the way of the man you prayed for, so long as he is well. And if the pain which first aroused your sympathy attacks him again, even then will you leave the irascible sovereign to himself or the care of the gods?"
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