On the Field of Mars the pyre had been erected, a great square
structure of resinous wood, the interior filled with coke and
sawdust, the exterior covered with illuminated cloths, on which,
for base, a tower rose, three storeys high. Into the first storey
flowers and perfumes were thrown, into the second the couch was
raised, then a torch was applied.
As the smoke ascended an eagle shot from the summit, circled a
moment, and disappeared. For the sum of a million sesterces a
senator swore that with the eagle he had seen the emperor's soul.
III
FABULOUS FIELDS
Mention Tiberius, and the name evokes a taciturn tyrant, devising
in the crypts of a palace infamies so monstrous that to describe
them new words were coined.
In the Borghese collection Tiberius is rather good-looking than
otherwise, not an Antinous certainly, but manifestly a dreamer;
one whose eyes must have been almost feline in their abstraction,
and in the corners of whose mouth you detect pride, no doubt, but
melancholy as well. The pride was congenital, the melancholy was
not.
Under Tiberius there was quiet, a romancer wrote, and the phrase
in its significance passed into legend. During the dozen or more
years that he ruled in Rome, his common sense was obvious. The
Tiber overflowed, the senate looked for a remedy in the Sibyline
Books. Tiberius set some engineers to work. A citizen swore by
Augustus and swore falsely.
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