with a large army and took the field against Severus. But my father was
not the man to hesitate. Within a few months of the obsequies of
Pertinax his opponent was a headless corpse.

"There was yet another obstacle to be removed. You have heard of Clodius
Albinus. My father had adopted him and raised him to share his throne.
But Severus could not divide the rule with any man.

"When I was nine years old I saw, after the battle of Lugdunum, the dead
face of Albinus's head; it was set up in front of the Curia on a lance.

"I now was the second personage in the empire, next to my father; the
first among the youth of the whole world, and the future emperor. When
I was eleven the soldiers hailed me as Augustus; that was in the war
against the Parthians, before Ktesiphon. But they did the same to Geta.
This was like wormwood in the sweet draught; and if then--But what can
a girl care about the state, and the fate of rulers and nations?"

"Yes, go on," said Melissa. "I see already what you are coming to. You
disliked the idea of sharing your power with another."

"Nay," cried Caracalla, vehemently, "I not only disliked it, it was
intolerable, impossible! What I want you to see is that I did not grudge
my brother his share of my father's inheritance, like any petty trader.
The world--that is the point--the world itself was too small for two of
us. It was not I, but Fate, which had doomed Geta to die. I am certain
of this, and so must you be. Yes, it was Fate. Fate prompted the
child's little hand to attempt its brother's life. And that was long
before my brain could form a thought or my baby-lips could stammer his
hated name."