This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
By Georg Ebers
Caracalla's evening meal was ended, and for years past his friends hadnever seen the gloomy monarch in so mad a mood. The high-priest ofSerapis, with Dio Cassius the senator, and a few others of his suite, hadnot indeed appeared at table; but the priest of Alexander, the prefectMacrinus, his favorites Theocritus, Pandion, Antigonus, and others oftheir kidney, had crowded round him, had drunk to his health, and wishedhim joy of his glorious revenge.
Everything which legend or history had recorded of similar deeds wascompared with this day's work, and it was agreed that it transcended themall. This delighted the half-drunken monarch. To-day, he declared withflashing eyes, and not till to-day, he had dared to be entirely what Fatehad called him to be—at once the judge and the executioner of anaccursed and degenerate race. As Titus had been named "the Good," so hewould be called "the Terrible." And this day had secured him that grandname, so pleasing to his inmost heart.
"Hail to the benevolent sovereign who would fain be terrible!" cried
Theocritus, raising his cup; and the rest of the guests echoed him.
Then the number of the slain was discussed. No one could estimate itexactly. Zminis, the only man who could have seen everything, had notappeared: Fifty, sixty, seventy thousand Alexandrians were supposed tohave suffered death; Macrinus, however, asserted that there must havebeen more than a hundred thousand, and Caracalla rewarded him for hisstatement by exclaiming loudly "Splendid! grand! Hardly comprehensibleby the vulgar mind! But, even so, it is not the end of what I mean togive them. To-day I have racked their limbs; but I have yet to strikethem to the heart, as they have stricken me!"
He ceased, and after a short pause repeated unhesitatingly, and as thoughby a sudden impulse, the lines with which Euripides ends several of histragedies:
"Jove in high heaven dispenses various fates;
And now the gods shower blessings which our hope
Dared not aspire to, now control the ills
We deemed inevitable. Thus the god
To these hath given an end we never thought."
—Potter's translation.
And this was the end of the revolting scene, for, as he spoke, Caesarpushed away his cup and sat staring into vacancy, so pale that hisphysician, foreseeing a fresh attack, brought out his medicine vial.
The praetorian prefect gave a signal to the rest that they should notnotice the change in their imperial host, and he did his best to keep theconversation going, till Caracalla, after a long pause, wiped his browand exclaimed hoarsely: "What has become of the Egyptian? He was tobring in the living prisoners—the living, I say! Let him bring methem."
He struck the table by his couch violently with his fist; and then, as ifthe clatter of the metal vessels on it had brought him to himself, headded, meditatively: "A hundred thousand! If they burned their deadhere, it would take a forest to reduce them to ashes."
"This day will cost him dear enough as it is," the high-priest ofAlexander whispered; he, as idiologos, having to deposit the tribute fromthe temples and their estates in the imperial treasury. He addressed hisneighbor, old Julius Paulinus, who replied:
"Cha