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Updated: May 3, 2025
Who was this god? and what had he done that a man like Taurus Antinor a man filled with all a man's strength and all a man's heroism, a man worshipped of the people and glorified by an entire nation should thus give up the lordship of Rome in order to do him service? that he should give it up, too, without a murmur, content to offer this final and absolute sacrifice. "Think not of me as unhappy.
"Until to-morrow only, Taurus Antinor," she rejoined coldly, "for to-morrow she must be in the slave market again, when my agents will bid for and buy her according to my will." "Nay! she shall not be put up for sale to-morrow." "By whose authority, O praefectus?" "By mine. The State hath given me leave to purchase privately a number of slaves from the late censor's household.
Together we'll think of that day in Judæa seven years ago, and we'll break bread and drink wine, and without trying to understand anything we'll do it all together in memory of Him!" For a moment Taurus Antinor was silent. In the strong face every line told of the great storm within the innermost heart.
Taurus Antinor had listened quite patiently to Menecreta's tale. His sun-tanned face clearly showed how hard he was trying to gather up the tangled threads of her scrappy narrative. Nor did the lictors this time try to interfere with the woman. The praefect apparently was in no easy temper to-day, and when ill-humour seized him rods and flails were kept busy.
And Taurus Antinor, in the silent depths of his soul, prayed unto God that the woman he loved should never as Menecreta had foretold be driven to beg for mercy from a heart that knew it not and find a pitiless ear turned to her prayers. Caligula had quickly shaken himself free from the arms that held him. The fainting fit which had threatened him passed away as swiftly as it had come.
But his howls just now were the means of rousing in the hearts of the crowd that most despicable of all passions to which the Roman the master of civilisation was a prey the love of seeing some creature, man or beast, in pain, a passion which brought the Roman citizen down to the level of the brute: therefore Taurus Antinor wished above all to silence Hun Rhavas.
But Caius Nepos was smiling blandly: the ire of Hortensius pleased him even though he did not understand its cause. "Nay, as to that," he said, "are we not all descended from slaves? Taurus Antinor hath the ear of the plebs. Doth suggest, O Hortensius, that he also hath the ear of Dea Flavia Augusta?" He had shot this arrow into the air, little guessing how hard and truly it would hit.
"And Caius Nepos wants some well-favoured girls to wait on his guests at supper to-morrow. He gives a banquet, as thou knowest. Wilt be there, Taurus Antinor?" He had spoken these last words in a curious manner which suggested that some significance other than mere conviviality would be attached to the banquet given by Caius Nepos on the morrow.
Taurus Antinor marvelled if that were her sleeping-room and, closing his eyes, pictured her there, resting on embroidered coverlets and cushions, her fair hair falling in waves around her face at rest; and he wondered whether in sleep a dewy tear had perchance put a priceless diamond on her golden lashes.
Suddenly Hortensius, brandishing the heavy goblet, raised it high above his head, and with a drunken and desperate gesture he flung it in the direction of the praefect, but his hand had trembled and his arm was unsteady. The goblet missed the head of Taurus Antinor and fell crashing along the marble-topped table, bringing a quantity of crystal down with it in its fall.
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