"Cannot I play the hypocrite too?"
CHAPTER IX.
As Glyceria had learned through her spies, Manlius was summoned by the lictors to Carinus' presence that very day. But instead of waiting for the command, he went to the palace before he received it.
Instead of his plain military costume he had donned the ample flowered silk toga worn by the fashionable dandies of the time, rubbed his hair with perfumed ointments, loaded his fingers with gems, adorned his ankles with circlets, and even ornamented his toes with rings which glittered between the thongs of his sandals, while he had scattered little red spots over his face till it looked as freckled as the Cæsar's. So, with an indolent, loitering step and a coquettish carriage of the head, he entered the vestibule of the imperial palace, which was already swarming with courtiers similarly attired, who gazed enviously at the youth's unusually magnificent costume—only they could not understand why he had painted freckles on his face. Manlius bowed to the floor before Carinus—a form of salutation which had been transplanted to Rome from the Persian court. Even Ævius was forced to admit that no one understood how to bow with so much humility as Manlius. Then, seizing a corner of the imperial mantle, he kissed it with the devout fervour which only the most pious Jews show in kissing the thora.
Carinus wished to appear stern.
"You have already been in Rome four days, and this is the first time you have come to me," he said reproachfully.
"O glorious Augustus," replied Manlius in an inimitably sweet tone; "I have already been ten times in your atrium to deliver the news I bring from Asia, but I learned as often that you were enjoying the delights envied by the gods, and I am not one of those rude soldiers who recklessly force their way in with their messages of supposed importance, and rob you of hours of bliss which can never be regained."
"Good. You are a man of worth; but what tidings do you bring from Persia?"
"There is no life anywhere in the world, O Augustus, except where you are. All the lands of the earth exist only to make the contrast between them and Rome the sharper. I will not weary you with tiresome tales of war and battles. Wars merely serve to lessen the number of dissatisfied people, so why should I disturb your repose with my descriptions?"