“It would be asking too much of your Roman table-companions that they should know a philosopher. You may spare yourself the question, Caesar. I came here that you might make my acquaintance. My name is Philippus, and I am son to Heron, the gem-cutter.”
“Her brother!” screamed Caracalla, as he rushed at him, and thrusting his hand into the neck of the sick youth’s chiton—who already could scarcely stand upon his feet—he shook him violently, crying, with a scoffing look at the high-priest:
“And is this the ornament of the Museum, the free-thinker, the profound skeptic Philippus?”
He stopped suddenly, and his eyes flashed as if a new light had burst upon him; he dropped his hand from the prisoner’s robe, and bending his head close to the other, he whispered in his ear, “You have come from Melissa?”
“Not from her,” the other answered quickly, the flush deepening on his face, “but in the name of that most unhappy, most pitiable maiden, and as the representative of her noble Macedonian house, which you would defile with shame and infamy; in the name of the inhabitants of this city, whom you despoil and tread under foot; in the interests of the whole world, which you disgrace!”
Trembling with fury Caracalla broke in:
“Who would choose you for their ambassador, miserable wretch?”
To which the philosopher replied with haughty calm:
“Think not so lightly of one who looks forward with longing to that of which you have an abject fear.”
“Of death, do you mean?” asked Caracalla, sneering, for his wrath had given place to astonishment.