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Updated: June 21, 2025
"There are thirty thousand ways of killing," Pertinax repeated, "but if we kill one monster, four or five others will fight for his place, unless, like Perseus, we have the head of a Medusa with which to freeze them into stone! There is no substitute for Commodus in sight. The only man whose face would freeze all rivals is Severus the Carthaginian!" "We are none of us blind," said Cornificia.
"Some one should convert him then!" said Sextus. "Cornificia, can't Marcia make a Christian of him; Christians pretend to oppose all the infamies he practises. It would be a merry joke to have a Christian emperor, who died because his soul was sick of him!
Cornificia more than any one had contrived to suggest to the praetorian guard that their interest might best be served some day by befriending Pertinax; she more than any one had disarmed Commodus' suspicion by complaining to him about Pertinax' lack of self-assertiveness, which had become Commodus' chief reason for not mistrusting him.
He would say his legions nominated him against his will and that to have disobeyed them would have laid him open to the punishment for treason. We must find a man who can forestall all three of them by winning, first, the praetorian guard, and then the senate and the Romans by dint of sound reforms and justice." "You are he! Rome trusts you. So does the senate," said Cornificia. "Marcia trusts me.
"You are less than half a man without your mistress!" Marcia exploded. "Don't stand trying to impress me with your dignity. I don't believe in it! I will send for Cornificia." "No, no!" Pertinax showed instant resolution. "Cornificia shall not be dragged in. The responsibility is yours and mine. Let us not lessen our dignity by involving an innocent woman."
"I just saw a naked woman stab a man with her hairpin and kick his corpse into the shrubbery before the breath was out of it!" "Galen has deserted you," said Cornificia. The murder was uninteresting; nobody made any comment. "Not he!" Pertinax answered, and went and sat on Galen's couch. "You find me not man enough for the senate to make a god of me is that it, Galen?"
In all ways, in fact, she was the opposite of Flavia Titiana it was hard to tell whether from natural preference or because the contrast to his wife's extremes of noisy gaiety and shameless license gave her a stronger hold on Pertinax. Rome's readiest slanderers had nothing scandalous to tell of Cornificia, whereas Flavia Titiana's inconstancies were a by-word.
Whose name do you guess comes first?" Pertinax was playing with Telamonion and did not look at her. "Severus!" he answered, morbid jealousy, amounting to obsession, stirring that cynical hope in him. "Severus isn't mentioned. The first six names are in this order: Galen, Marcia, Cornificia, Pertinax, Narcissus, Sextus alias Maternus. Do you realize what that means? It is now or never!
"That I should serve Rome and receive ingratitude. What else does any man receive who serves Rome? They who cheat her are the ones who prosper!" "Send for Cornificia," said Marcia. "She keeps your resolution. Let her come and loose it!" Pertinax turned sharply on her. "Flavia Titiana shall not suffer that indignity. Cornificia can not enter this house."
"You shall see him now!" laughed Marcia, and Cornificia clapped her hands. Less suddenly than Sextus had appeared, because his age was beginning to tell on him, Galen entered the court through a door behind the palm- trees and stood smiling, making his old-world, slow salute to Marcia. His bright eyes moved alertly amid wrinkles.
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