"Many a poor patrician has better furniture and more servants and a
nobler palace," said Appius. "Rather plain wood, divans out of
fashion, rugs o'erworn; but you have seen them. He alone can afford
that kind of thing."
"He has a fondness for old things."
"But not for old women, my dear fellow."
"Indeed! And he is himself sixty-one."
"Hist--the imperator! There, by the gate yonder."
An erect figure of a man rather above medium height, in a coarse, gray
toga, stood by one of the white columns. Three Moorish children were
playing about his knees, and a senator was talking with him.
"My public services are familiar to you," said the senator, as the
young knights waited some twenty paces off. "A gift of two hundred
thousand denarii would be fitting, and, if you will permit me to say
so, it would delight the populace. Indeed, 'tis generally believed you
have already given me a large sum."
"But see that you do not believe it," blandly spake the strange
emperor, for albeit Rome was then a republic in name it was an empire
in fact, and Augustus, wielding the power of an emperor, refused the
title.
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