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Updated: May 25, 2025
"Miraculous!" cried Tanno, "but beastly undignified. Fancy a Roman, of equestrian rank, moving in Rome's best society circles, a friend of the Emperor, sprawling on a pavement playing with a stinking leopard, letting her tousle him and rumple his clothes, and letting her slobber her foul saliva all over his arms and shoulders! I'm ashamed of you, Hedulio!" "Nothing to be ashamed of!" I said.
"Did you never see Hedulio beckon such a dog, handle and gentle him, even pet him." "Once I did, as I now recall," Tanno confessed, "yet I thought nothing of it at the time and forgot it at once." "Probably," Muso conjectured, "you thought the dog was only pretending to be cross and was really tame." "Just about that, I suppose," Tanno ruminated.
"But," he cried, "if you do such wonders, how do you do them, Caius?" "I don't know now," I said, "any more than I knew the first time I gentled a fierce strange dog. It came natural then, it always has come natural." "Naturally," said Lisius Naepor, "since it is part of your nature from before birth. Do you mean to tell us, Opsitius, that Hedulio has never shown you his horoscope?"
To me he said: "That will keep you alive, Hedulio and, I trust, help you to get back into good health. Horrible bore, these small-size local matters; worse, if anything, even, than the maintenance of the Rhine frontier. I loathe all this routine. But my agents serve me pretty well.
Commodus barely spoke to most of them; it seemed to me, indeed, that he said more to Vedius and Satronius than to any other senators. Then came the turn of us knights, far more numerous than the senators. The ushers positively hurried us along. To me, to my amazement, the Emperor spoke very kindly. "I am delighted to see you here today, Hedulio." he said.
I stopped, for we had no weapons. Hedulio, however, went on, never altering his easy saunter. The wolf came out of the ferns and paced up to Hedulio like a house dog. Hedulio patted his head, pulled his ears and the wolf not only did not attack him nor snap at him, nor even snarl, but showed his pleasure as plainly as any pet dog. When Hedulio had stopped petting him, I reached them.
Bultius Seclator said: "I have seen Hedulio seat himself on a rock in the sunshine and seen a golden eagle, circling in the sky, circle lower and lower till he perched on Hedulio's wrist and not only perched there, but sat there some time, preening his feathers as if alone on the dead topmost limb of a tall tree, eye Hedulio's face without pecking at him and finally take wing and leave Hedulio's arm not only untorn by his talons, but unscratched, without even a mark of the claw-points."
"I settled myself and looked down. "The bear was standing still, some paces from her den, peering at it and snuffing the air, working her nose it seemed to me, and moving her head from side to side. "Hedulio had not moved. He stood just where I had left him, one cub in his arms, the other cuddled at his feet.
"Here's the solution of our dilemma," he cried. "We are all right now. We've two men who know Commodus by sight. This is Andivius Hedulio, my former master's nephew, and the other is his secretary, Agathemer." "What, in the name of Mithras," Maternus breathed, "is your master's nephew doing in a cave in the Apennines, with his back all scourge-marks and a runaway-slave brand on his shoulder?"
So I suppose I ought to believe it. But it struck me, while I listened to you, as the biggest lie I ever heard. I apologize for my incredulity." "It would be incredible," said Juventius Muso, "if told of any one except Hedulio and it would probably be untrue. As it is told of Hedulio it is probably true and also entirely credible." "Why of Caius any more than any one else?" queried Tanno.
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