Talbot Mundy, The Falling Star — Chapter 6 (1926)
“ There’s more dignity about one gladiator’s death than in all Rome outside the arena! Woman, you forget you are only a woman. I remember that! I am a god! I have the blood of Cæsar in my veins. And like the unseen gods, I take my pleasure watching men and women die! I loose my javelins like thunderbolts—like Jupiter himself! Like Hercules—” He paused. He noticed Marcia was laughing. ”
Talbot Mundy, The Falling Star — Chapter 6 (1926)
“ Sextus would be all for striking now, this instant; he has assured himself that the world is tired of Commodus, and that no faction is strong enough to stand in the way of Pertinax; but he knows how difficult it will be to persuade Pertinax to assert himself. Pertinax will not hear of murdering Cæsar; he says: ‘Let us see what happens—if the Fates intend me to be Cæsar, let the Fates show how!’” “Aye, that is Pertinax!” said Marcia. “Why is it that the honest men are all such cunctators! ”
Talbot Mundy, The Falling Star — Chapter 6 (1926)
“ Marcia answered. “By Jupiter, there’s not much that they do approve of!” he retorted. “I begin to weary of your Christians. I begin to think Nero was right, and my father, too! There was wisdom in treating Christians as vermin! It might not be a bad thing, Marcia, to warn your Christians to procure themselves a charm or two against my weariness of their perpetual efforts to govern me! The Christians, I suppose, have been telling you to keep me out of the arena? Hence this living statuary in the corridor, and all this talk about the dignity of Rome! ”
