through half the empire, and had experienced more than other boys of
twice my age. I was, at any rate, still child enough to forget
everything else in the brilliant spectacle that unfolded before my eyes.
I remember to this day the colored wax statue which represented Pertinax
so exactly that it might have been himself risen from the grave. And the
procession! It seemed to have no end; one new thing followed another.
All walked past in mourning robes, even the choir of singing boys and
men. Cilo explained to me who had made the statues of the Romans who had
served their country, who the artists and scholars were, whose statues
and busts were carried by. Then came bronze groups of the people of
every nation in the empire, in their costumes. Cilo told me what they
were called, and where they lived; he then added that one day they would
all belong to me; that I must learn the art of fighting, in case they
resisted me, and should require suppressing. Also, when they carried the
flags of the guilds past, when the horse and foot soldiers, the race-
horses from the circus and several other things came by, he continued to
explain them. I only remember it now because it made me so happy. The
old man spoke to me alone; he regarded me alone as the future sovereign.
He left Geta to eat the sweets which his aunts had given him, and when I
too wanted some my brother refused to let me have any. Then Cilo stroked
my hair, and said: 'leave him his toys. When you are a man you shall
have the whole Roman Empire for your own, and all the nations I told you
of.' Geta meanwhile had thought better of it, and pushed some of the
sweetmeats toward me. I would not have them, and, when he tried to make
me take them, I threw them into the road."

"And you remember all that?" said Melissa.

"More things than these are indelibly stamped on my mind from that day,"
said Caesar. "I can see before me now the pile on which Pertinax was to