Talbot Mundy

“ Send a gladiator in against another gladiator and even though he may know that the other man can split a stick at twenty yards, he will do his best. But let him know he goes against the emperor and he has no nerve to start with; he can’t aim straight; he suspects his own three javelins and his shield and helmet have been tampered with. I myself would be afraid to face Paulus, being not much good with the javelin in any case, besides being superstitious about killing emperors, who are gods, not men, or the senate and priests wouldn’t say so. ”

“ One of us might get him. I am lucky. I believe the gods are interested in me, I have had so many escapes from death.”
“I haven’t much faith in the gods,” said Narcissus. “They may be all like Commodus. I heard Galen say that men created gods in their own image.”
Sextus smiled at him.
“You have been listening, I suppose, to Marcia and her Christians.”
“Listening, yes, but I don’t lean either way. It doesn’t seem to me that Christianity can do much for a man when javelins are in the air. And besides, to be frank with you, Sextus, I rather hope to make a little something for myself. ”

“ Sextus answered, “sneaking into Rome to borrow money from my father’s friends to save me the necessity of stealing. It is one thing to pretend to be a robber, and another thing to rob. The robber’s name makes nine men out of ten your secret well-wishers; the deed makes you all men’s enemy. ”

“ The farms where the slave-gangs labor like poor old Sisyphus and are sold off in their old age to the contractors who clear the latrines, or to the galleys, or, if they’re lucky, to the lime-kilns where they dry up like sticks and die soon? ”

“ Also, I enjoy the company of honest men, and I think you are honest, although I think you are also an idealist—which, I take it, is the same thing as a born fool, or so I have begun to think, since I attend on the emperor and have to hear so much talk of philosophy. ”