"Well then, by Hercules, take payment for the risk, and cut the risk and vanish!" exclaimed Narcissus. "Help yourself once and for all to a bag full of gold in exchange for your father's estates that were confiscated when they cut his head off. Then leave Italy, and let us be outlaws in Sardinia."
Sextus laughed.
"That probably sounds glorious to one in your position. I, too, rather enjoyed the prospect when I first made my escape from Antioch and discovered how easy the life was. But though I owe it to my father's memory to win back his estates, even that, and present outlawry is small compared to the zeal I have for restoring Rome's ancient liberties. But I don't deceive myself; I am not the man who can accomplish that; I can only help the one who can, and will. That one is Pertinax. He will reverse the process that has been going on since Julius Caesar overthrew the old republic. He will use a Caesar's power to destroy the edifice of Caesar and rebuild what Caesar wrecked!"
Narcissus pondered that, his head between his hands.
"I haven't Rome at heart," he said at last. "Why should I have? There are girls, whom I have forgotten, whom I loved more than I love Rome. I am a slave gladiator. I have been applauded by the crowds, but know what that means, having seen other men go the same route. I am an emperor's favorite, and I know what that means too; I saw Cleander die; I have seen man after man, and woman after woman lose his favor suddenly. Banishment, death, the ergastulum, torture—and, what is much worse, the insults the brute heaps on any one he turns against—I am too wise to give that—" he spat on the flag-stones—"for the friendship of Commodus. And Commodus is Rome; you can't persuade me he isn't. Rome turns on its favorites as he does—scorns them, insults them, throws them on dung-heaps. That for Rome!" He spat again. "They even break the noses off the statues of the men they used to idolize! They even throw the statues on a dung-heap to insult the dead! Why should I set Rome above my own convenience?"
"Well, for instance, you could almost certainly buy your freedom by betraying me," said Sextus. "Why don't you?"
"Jupiter! How shall a man answer that? I suppose I don't betray you because if I did I should loathe myself. And I prefer to like myself, which I contrive to do at intervals. 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. Look you what philosophy has made of Commodus! Didn't Marcus Aurelius beget him from his own loins, and wasn't Marcus Aurelius the greatest of all philosophers? Didn't he surround young Commodus with all the learned idealists he could find? That is what I am told he did. And look at Commodus! Our Roman Commodus! God Commodus! I haven't murdered him because I am afraid, and because I don't see how I could gain by it. I don't betray you because I would despise myself if I did."
"I would despise myself if I should be untrue to Rome," Sextus answered after a moment. "Commodus is not Rome. Neither is the mob Rome."
"What is then?" Narcissus asked. "The bricks and mortar? The marble that the slaves must haul under the lash? The ponds where they feed their lampreys on dead gladiators? The arena where a man salutes a dummy emperor before a disguised one kills him? The senate, where they buy and sell the consulates and praetorships and guaestorships? The tribunals where justice goes by privilege? The temples where as many gods as there are, Romans yell for sacrifices to enrich the priests? The farms where the slave-gangs labor like poor old Sysyphus 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? There is a woman in a side-street near the fish-market, who is very rich and looks like Rome to me. She has so many gold rings on her fingers that you can't see the dirt underneath; and she owns so many brothels and wine-shops that she can even buy off the tax-collectors. Do I love her? Do I love Rome? No! I love you, Sextus, son of Maximus, and I will go with you to the world's end if you will lead the way."
"I love Rome," Sextus answered. "Possibly I want to see her liberties restored because I love my own liberty and can't imagine myself honorable unless Rome herself is honored first. When you and I are sick we need a Galen. Rome needs Pertinax. You ask me what is Rome? She is the cradle of my manhood."