Manifestly his ways had mended. But Vespasian was uneasy. A comet
had appeared. The doors of the imperial mausoleum had opened of
themselves, besides, he was not well. The robust and hardy
soldier, suddenly without tangible cause, felt his strength give
way. "It is nothing," his physician said; "a slight attack of
fever." Vespasian shook his head; he knew things of which the
physician was ignorant. "It is death," he answered, "and an
emperor should meet it standing."
Titus' turn came next. A violent, headstrong, handsome, rapacious
prince, terribly prodigal, thoroughly Oriental, surrounded by
dancers and mignons, living in state with a queen for mistress,
startling even Rome with the uproar of his debauches--no sooner
was Vespasian gone than presto! the queen went home, the dancers
disappeared, the debauches ceased, and a ruler appeared who
declared he had lost a day that a good action had not marked; a
ruler who could announce that no one should leave his presence
depressed.
Though Vespasian had gone, his reign continued. Not long, it is
true, and punctuated by a spectacle of which Caligula, for all his
poetry, had not dreamed--the burial of Pompeii. But a reign which,
while it lasted, was fastidious and refined, and during which,
again and again, Titus, who commanded death and whom death obeyed,
besought Domitian to be to him a brother.
Domitian had no such intention.
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