He then explained to me that he was to make his attempt in the Gardens of Lucius Verus, where Commodus had this year decreed the torchlight procession. He was again entirely frank.
"Your part," he said, "will be merely to point out Commodus to me. If I decide not to make any attempt on him I shall expect you to return here with me and abide by whatever decision our association makes at its next meeting: I cannot foresee whether they will vote to disband or to plan another venture. If I make my attempt, and I think I shall, for, apparently, both Caburus and Cossedo have blenched or failed, since no rumors of any excitement have reached us, you will be free the moment you see me stab Commodus. You must then look out for yourself and fend for yourself: you and I are never to meet again unless by some unimaginable series of miracles."
And he gave me four silver pieces, saying:
"This will keep you in food for a long time, if you are sparing. Good luck!"
Then, habited as in the morning, we sallied out, and ate at a cook-shop we had never before entered, which was full of revellers dressed as votaries of Isis, as Egyptians, as cut-laws, as Arabians, as anything and everything. And as we crossed the city on our way to the Aelian Bridge, as we were passing through a better part of it, I was struck with the craziness of the costumes, many imitating every imaginable style of garb: Gallic, Spanish, Moorish, Syrian, Persian, Lydian, Thracian, Scythian and many more; but many also devised according to no style that ever existed, but invented by the wearers, in a mad competition to don the most fantastic and bizarre garb imagination could suggest.
In the torchlit gardens I perceived at once that it would be very easy for Maternus to edge close to the actual bodyguard, mingle with them, pass himself off as one, get near the Emperor and make a rush at him. He had chosen a spot where the procession was to circle thrice about a great statue of Cybele set up for that occasion on a temporary base in the middle of a round grass-plot. His idea was that I was to point out Commodus to him on the first round and he to consider the disposition of the participants in the procession and make his attempt on the second or third round.
Standing, as we did, in the front row of a mass of revellers packed as spectators along the incurved outer rim of the ring, we had a surpassingly good view of the procession as it entered the circle. There were various bands of votaries and then six eunuch priests, their faces whitened with flour, their garb a flowing robe of light vivid yellow, convoying a brace of panthers, pacing as sedately as the brace of lions in the morning procession, drawing a light chariot in which sat a diademed, robed and garlanded image of Cybele, very gaudy and garish. Behind the chariot paced two priests of Cybele, not Phrygian Eunuchs, but Roman officials, in their pontifical robes, a pair of dignified old senators, ex-consuls both, Vitrasius Pollio and Flavius Aper, full of self-importance. Then came the Chief Priest, tall, full-bearded, swarthy, his robes a blaze of gold and jewels, pacing solemnly, on either side of him, as assistant priest, a young Roman nobleman, chosen from the college of the Pontiffs of Cybele, habited in very gorgeous robes. One was Marcus Octavius Vindex, son of the ex-consul, a very handsome young man; the other, to my amazement, Talponius Pulto.
At sight of my life-long enemy who had always rebuffed my overtures towards the establishment of courteous relations between us, who had insulted me a thousand times, who had sponsored the informer whose insinuations had caused my downfall, revengeful rage and self- congratulation at my opportunity filled me.
For, between the two pompous old senators and this dignified, showy and impressive trio, capered a score of eunuch priests clashing cymbals and among them Commodus also clashing cymbals and amazingly garbed. I have never been able to conjecture how his headgear was managed. He had a band round his forehead and from that band rose a sphere of some light material, apparently a framework of whalebone covered with silk, a sphere fully a yard in diameter, all gleaming with the sheen of silk, and white with an unsurpassable whiteness. His robe, or tunic or whatever it was, was of the same or a similar glossy white silk. Round his neck was a golden collar, and gold anklets of a similar pattern clanked on his ankles. From the links or bosses of the collar to the links or bosses of the anklets streamed silken ribbons of the same intense light yellow we had seen in the robes of the panther-keepers. Two of the eunuch priests fanned him with peacock feather fans, so that the ribbons fluttered and shimmered in the torchlight. He wore soft shoes or slippers of the same vivid yellow. Clashing his cymbals he shrieked and capered with the eunuch priests.
I was more than shocked to see the Prince of the Republic so degrade himself, to see him exhibit the acme of the craze for devising unimaginably fantastic costumes for this Festival.