Behind each
guest was a broken column with his name on it. The food was such
as is prepared when death has come. The silence was that of the
tomb. The only audible voice was Domitian's. He was talking very
wittily and charmingly about murder, about proscriptions, the good
informers do, the utility of the headsman, the majesty of the law.
The guests, a trifle ill at ease, wished their host sweet dreams.
"The same to you," he answered, and deplored that they must go.
On the morrow informers and headsmen were at work. Any pretext was
sufficient. Birth, wealth, fame, or the lack of them--anything
whatever--and there the culprit stood, charged not with treason to
an emperor, but with impiety to a god. On the judgment seat
Domitian sat. Before him the accused passed, and under his eyes
they were questioned, tortured, condemned and killed. At once
their property passed into the keeping of the prince.
Of that he had need. The arena was expensive, but the drain was
elsewhere. A little before, a quarrelsome people, the Dacians,
whom it took a Trajan to subdue, had overrun the Danube, and were
marching down to Rome. Domitian set out to meet them. The Dacians
retreated, not at all because they were repulsed, but because
Domitian thought it better warfare to pay them to do so. On his
return after that victory he enjoyed a triumph as fair as that of
Caesar. And each year since then the emperor of Rome had paid
tribute to a nation of mongrel oafs.
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