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Updated: May 3, 2025
In the meanwhile we all are Taurus Antinor's slaves and must look after his houses until they have been sold." "Wilt be happy as a freedman, Folces?" "Yes, Augusta," replied the man simply, "for then I shall be at liberty to follow Taurus Antinor as his servant." She sat quite silently after this, her tear-stained eyes fixed into vacancy. Folces was on his knees waiting to be dismissed.
But Hortensius Martius who, though he had drunk as heavily as the others, had not joined in the ribald songs or the senseless orgy of shouts and of laughter, now jumped up with a violent oath. "What hath Taurus Antinor to do with us?" he shouted at the top of his voice, "or we with Taurus Antinor?
Taurus Antinor descended these and knocked boldly on the door. It was opened from within, and under the rough lintel there appeared the figure of a man of short stature, clad in a long grey tunic.
"Or wilt ply him with wine first?" "'Twere safer." "Nay! nay!" said Escanes, whose wrists and ankles were being bathed, "that would take too long. Taurus Antinor hath a strong head, and I, for one, could not keep sober another half-hour." "Dost know if he is at one with us?" was the query that came from every side. Hortensius Martius alone had remained silent.
"Then do I take my leave of thee, O Cæsar," retorted Taurus Antinor coldly. "For here alone, with but twenty men to guard thee, I can do naught to save thy person from outrage." "If I were quite sure that I could trust thee...." "That is for thee to decide. I have offered thee my services ... an thou'lt not accept them I crave thy leave to go."
And yet Taurus Antinor, now looking back upon his own past self, knew that at the time, despite the horror, the pity and the sorrow, there was also in his heart a sense of happiness and even a vague feeling of triumph. What he saw there with eyes that comprehended not that he knew was because it must be; because it had been preordained and done by One Whose will was mightier than death.
And among them all Taurus Antinor, praefect of Rome, with his ruddy hair and bronzed skin, his massive frame clad in gorgeously embroidered tunic, his whole appearance heavy and almost rough, in strange contrast alike to the young decadents of the day as to the rigid primness of the patrician matrons, just as his harsh, even voice seemed to dominate the lazy and mellow trebles of the votaries of fashion.
In the midst of an entourage composed of lying sycophants and of treacherous minions, the Cæsar seemed to feel in the presence of the stranger a sense of security and of trust. Some writers have averred that Caligula looked on Taurus Antinor as a kind of personal fetish who kept the wrath of the gods averted from his imperial head.
"I dare not go, praefect!... take me back ... I dare not go!" Taurus Antinor, none too patient a man at any time, had to clench his fists and drive his finger-nails into the palms of his hands, else he could have struck this abject, miserable coward. He wrenched his cloak out of the Cæsar's grasp and with a firm grip pulled him roughly up from the ground.
He knew every line of the rugged face which many deemed so fierce and callous, but in which he had so often seen the light of an all-embracing charity. When Taurus Antinor used to visit his friend in the olden days he was wont to shed from him that mantle of rebellious pride with which, during the exercise of his duties in Rome, he always hid his real personality.
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