AN HOUR WITH CÆSAR AUGUSTUS.

Ah! I am late this morning. I can feel in the air the vibration of the third hour. Attius! Attius! I suppose he thinks that having lain so long, I may as well wait till tomorrow. Ah! Attius, have you, too, overslept yourself? No more dinners with Maecenas: we are getting too old for them. It is the third hour; I will rise. But first request Livia Augusta to favor me with her presence. Dear old Attius! that little trick of telling him the hour never fails. Now for my daily bargain with the august.

Madam, good morning; leave us, Attius. And how is the irreproachable? Judging from her roses, better than her lacy deputy. I spare you the econium of Maecenas’ wine. I saw last night a girl named Candidia; do you know who she is? Oh, the old senator’s daughter? Not much like him; I should have said our late friend, Mark Antony, was a friend of the family. You know that? I thought she had a trick of him, and I don’t often make that sort of mistake. She’s a very fine young woman, the white Cantonia. I suppose you know all about her; is she desirous of influence at Court? H’m! Thanks; I trust you to awake her to the legitimate ambition of a Roman beauty. I wish, Incomparable, you’d find a Maecenas to renasce Roman women. When Candidia stands up you can see she is standing on her legs, and, except a certain perennial of mine, I can’t say as much for any woman else in Rome. Will you see about it? Thanks, kindest of Junos.

Now, another matter. You must see by now, Livia, that it’s impossible for me to let Tiberius go on any longer as he’s doing. You must let me send him away. Yes, yes; I know all you’ve done for me, but it doesn’t justify your son in studied insolence. After all I’m supposed to be Proconsul and Pontiff and Augustus, and all that, and I can’t let him do it. Claudian pride? Well, I can only say that there’s no vacancy for Claudian pride in Rome just at present. Eh? What has Candidia to do with Tiberius? Oh, I see; you want to bargain. Very well, Candidia for Tiberius—only on these conditions. First, you must talk to him seriously about his demeanor—not as coming from me, you understand. Secondly, I put him on the list for foreign service. Oh, yes, you can make your mind easy. He shall have a big war, and a triumph, and all the fandangles. Also, I’ll throw in Agrippa; he shall go abroad and have no triumph, and I’ll try to keep Julia quiet. I’m a generous Jove—eh, Junicula? Give me a kiss, old wench. We’ve had some battering times together, eh? And if I’m not mistaken you’ve still something to hold your back straight on, eh? Eh? Eh? Adieu, my Empress. Send in Cleobulus, will you? And don’t forget Candidia—H’m.

My excellent spouse was pleased with my little attentions. Also she was pleased with the idea of her Tiberius in high command; she doesn’t yet understand the value of interior lines in politics, my Augusta. I suppose she foresees her Tiberius crossing the Rubicon while we all sit tremulous in East Aurora—ha, ha! And yet she’s seen the Praetorians at drill every day these many years. Naturalists have greatly neglected women.

Now, Cleobulus, my wig and my eye-brightening stuff. I always assume you don’t give away these secrets of the toilet, Cleobulus. If you do, the next wig will be the scalp of one Cleobulus, mysteriously disappeared. Now the gown. Not that, you nincompoop of genius. How often must I tell you I’m only plain Proconsul? That will do: now announce me at the levee. I wonder who’s here today. I’m glad the Roman Senators haven’t the political insight of that hair-dresser.

Attius, precede me into the ante-chamber, while I have a look at the company. Gods, what an air the rogue has with him, and how very right he is, considering the way they grovel to him. A poor set of curs, I’m afraid, these nobles at Rome; yet I’m afraid I like them.

Good day, gentlemen, I fear I have ill repaid this courteous attention by keeping you so long awaiting. Ah, Isauricus, my dear old friend, this is too kind. Too kind; it is I that should be calling on you; you must not expose yourself to this morning air; all Rome is waiting for your speech on this new Land Bill or Agrippa’s. By the way, Egnatius, I do not think you have yet taken the public into confidence as to your attitude? You reserve it? Ha! I am not sure you are right, if I may say so. One loses a great part of one’s due influence, I always think, unless one gives an opinion time to percolate, as one might say. I have told Agrippa frankly all along that I shall oppose him on the municipal clauses. What says Piso? Opposed to the whole scheme; you will speak, of course?

Aha, good day, Iulus. What says Iulus on the question of the hour? An excellent measure all around! So—well, it should be an interesting debate, and personally I am still open to be convinced. And here is the author of all the trouble, himself. How do you do, Agrippa? Eh? A word in private; by all means, old man. Want to go away? No, no, dear fellow, we want you here. Pannonia and Germany? Nonsense, you’re losing your nerve. Why, we settled the Pannonians years ago. Well, we’ll think it over.

Good morning, Maecenas; survived your own wine, I see! Amusing fellow, that little Horace of yours. Underbred? No, I didn’t notice it. I tell you what, though, if I were that man I wouldn’t stand the way you treat him for five minutes, good as your dinners are. However, that’s his affair. Been here long? I’m beginning to agree with you about Iulus. See me before dinner.

Well, gentlemen, I thank you once more for the high honor you have paid me. I am afraid you spoil me with your indulgence, for I am now about to ask to be excused. You have put me in an important public position, and I am anxious not to disappoint you. Adieu, my friends.

H’m. To-day’s hypocrisy over. Not that it is, though, for I have to play the hypocrite one way and another every minute of my life. I’m beginning to think it’s a mistake to be a tyrant. It’s exciting enough when you have to fight for it; but when you’ve got it, decidedly a bore. And unluckily the posing isn’t the worst of it; the worst of it is that you have to suppress so many good fellows. Now I know Egnatius is guilty of the impiety of not seeing why he should do what I please any more than I should do what he pleases. I must get rid of him; I can’t help myself. Such a witty, astute fellow, too, and what a boxer! Iulus I must get rid of, too. I fancy Maecenas has got his own reasons for wanting Iulus out of the way; still he is his father’s son, and never quite safe. A man I’ve known since they first put me into the long gown. No, I sha’n’t get rid of Iulus; he can go to Gyarus if Maecenas likes. No, dam it, why Gyarus? He won’t do any harm at Rhodes, and at least he can get a dinner there. Poor old Iulus! And poor old Agrippa! I suppose he wants to go away because, he can’t stand Julia any more. I should never mind that sort of scandal myself, but some do. Perhaps I was to blame in giving him Julia at all, knowing her character. But she had to marry somebody and that somebody could be none else than Agrippa. Such is statesmanship! Now the poor old boy wants to go back to his soldiers. But I can’t do it. Once he gets to Pannonia, he’d forget his obedience—and he is most astonishingly obedient—and go for the chiefs. His loyalty’s splendid, but I can’t trust even it, when the old war-horse sees the enemy in front of him. And the worst of it is that the chiefs ought to be smashed this summer, and no man in the world could do it as well as Agrippa. It would be all over in a month. But Pannonia’s got to be nursed, for Pannonia’s to be a big thing, and Tiberius is to get his triumph for it, sulky dog. Yet he’s got the stuff in him, too. I suppose I’d better make up some reason to send Agrippa to Gaul again: Livia can’t object to him there. After all, the real devil of it isn’t being a tyrant, but being a married tyrant. There isn’t an easier or pleasanter thing in the whole world than to go on as I’m doing now, and keep my place to the end, and my friends into the bargain. It’s this cursed dynasty business, and that cursed woman—though she’s behaved a deuced deal better to me than I deserved. But why in the name of all the gods at once must I turn out my oldest friend to die miserable in Gaul? Why, to make the way easy for a moody young prig that I dislike—and who hates me. What do I get for it all? Candidia! That’s what it comes to, when you work it out. I’m monarch of the world, and the gain of it is that I have unequaled chances of making a ridiculous goddam goat of myself. I wish to Heaven I’d had my uncle’s pluck: then I should have been cut to pieces ten years ago. Still after all, Agrippa’s going to Gaul would be away out of the Land Bill business, and I begin to think I went too far in the matter. Yes: he had better go.

G. W. Stevens.